Special Demo for Lake Lotus

We were invited to do a special demonstration event inside the Lake Lotus Park today like we would for Earth Day and it was scheduled for a select group that signed up through the Altamonte site. Later in the day, we were joined by our friends at the Avian Reconditioning Center to show their raptors. Being that it was just the beginning of migration we were happy to have the few birds we did capture today.

Birds were calling all over the property as we set nets starting at 7 AM but they quickly quieted down not too much later. There was 30 or so participants signed up, but half showed early on. Andrew began the tour with them to show how we set nets in hopes of catching birds.



Fortunately, as we neared the end of the net lane, an Ovenbird darted from the brush and hit the net in front of us so it could be shown how gentle the nets are to the birds. It was our 2nd Ovenbird of the season.



The crowd got to take shots of the process of banding as we processed the Ovenbird and had one of the kids release it.



The air was quickly filled with calls of Cicadas and the bird calls vanished. We continued our rounds and finally caught a Red-Eyed Vireo in the same net as the Ovenbird. Most of the crowd was listening to the presentation from ARC, but they were alerted to the new bird and they came out for the viewing.



Red-Eyed Vireos do breed in the park and we have been hearing them for a weeks. This one seems to be a juvenile judging by the brownish irises.



One of our visitors seems keen to be helping out in the future, and she got to release the Vireo after we got all of our data.



We have been watching the calendar carefully for the past few weeks and we know that there are certain species that arrive at certain times of the year. Just as we began to wonder if they would show up, we caught a Veery on the very week they typically arrive.



Most of our visitors had departed by this time so our only audience were the rangers. Ranger Patrick got the opportunity to release the Veery.



The day was getting late and the participants were departing so we began to shut down around 1 PM. We began at the far end of the nets and by the time we got to the front of the nets we had captured a new migrant. A male Black-throated Blue Warbler. A great end to the day!



The ARC crew was also winding down and one of their group wandered out to see what we had brought back and got to release our new Black-throated Blue Warbler. We had to warn her to keep her raptors away from our tiny potential meals before she could participate! Nice to see Gordon, the Great-horned Owl, again after all these years.



Back to home next week. Hurricanes are streaming all over the place but seem to be out of our way this year.
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, September 16th.
All nets will be opened by 6:40 A.M.

New Migrants and a Surprise Baby

It was a pretty quiet day and we actually did not catch many of our birds until 8:30. That little flurry then was pretty close to the end of our morning.

First bird was a recaptured adult male Northern Cardinal. Shortly afterwards, a recaptured Carolina Wren was processed.



We have been waiting for the return of Louisiana and Northern Waterthrush. We should have been capturing them earlier and just when we were about to give up on them Melanie found a Northern Waterthrush in Net 1.



That bird was closely followed by our 2nd Ovenbird of the season. This was a hatch-year bird.



Then main surprise of the day was a recently fledged Painted Bunting. Had to go back in the archives to find that it was 6 years ago that we caught a pair of fledglings near the same spot. The following year we also caught one juvenile bird. These buntings are definitely breeding in the area.



A small patch of Wild Potato Vine (Ipomoea pandurata) are growing just behind the table and Connie spotted them blooming this morning.



We will not be banding at our usual spot next week. The park has asked us to do a demo day in the park on Saturday for a special event. The beginning of the event is limited to a few guests, but the park opens to the public at their usual hours and we will band for a while until it seems birds are no longer flying for the morning. We will return to our typical banding spot on the 16th.
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Saturday, September 8th.
All nets will be opened by 6:35 A.M.

First Migrants in the Books

Not the most spectacular day in the woods, but a fairly normal end to August. Finally getting some migrants lower into the nets but still mainly capturing local birds.

As Andrew was getting to the last net, he was met by a very large Bull Frog in the path that let him attempt a dark morning shot.



Our largest species captured of the day were Carolina Wrens. Some were new and others were recaptures.



Apparently, there were heavy rains nearby overnight and the water levels were quite high. It seemed like the perfect setup for Waterthrushes and others but none of the expected species showed themselves. There were, however, a large number of Red-eyed Vireos around today.



Our best friends, the Air Potato Beetles, were out in huge numbers and mating and devouring their host plants. Thanks, beetles!



Just after we began wondering were the Ovenbirds were, we caught one in Net 2.



One of our other Carolina Wrens.



The Bird-of-the-Day was captured early on. This is the first Yellow-throated Warbler ever banded at Lake Lotus. We used to get several at Wekiwa Springs. Nice to add it to our growing list of captures here.



If the approaching storm front holds off a bit we should be getting more and more migrants. Hoping the winds stay a bit calm with the drier conditions this week.
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, September 2nd.
All nets will be opened by 6:35 A.M.

Locals Captured, Migrants Seen.

More quiet than expected. Checking on the records, things start to ramp up next week. Always seems like it should be earlier. Sometimes it is, actually. Some migrants are showing up in different parts of the state, but we caught none today. All locals.

We got a real bad cell phone shot of caterpillars that Susan discovered by Net 14. Searching around the web seems to suggest that they are Io Moth caterpillars all clumped together.



It was very quiet through much of the morning and then we finally had Net 16 holding 3 birds. The Cardinal escaped before we could get there but the other two were Carolina Wrens. One was a juvenile that was first banded in the Spring.



The second was and new adult and we can't believe it hadn't been captured earlier. It was getting rid of its brood path heading into Fall.



One of our new rangers, Corey is documenting things around the park, including our banding site, and he got to release both of the Carolina Wrens this morning. We are looking forward to seeing and helping his documentation as an upgrade to the park's information.



While the nets were being checked, the ladies found a juvenile Opossum up in the trees next to Net 18. All sorts of mammals roam about the site morning, noon, and night.



Kate found one of our migrants seen today. A Yellow Warbler out in the marsh. While we were extracting the Wrens, we had a Black and White Warbler drop low, and we saw a few Redstarts, too.



More first of Fall migrants should arrive next week (knock nets) and then we get more and more busy through October. Just keep the storms away!
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, August 26th.
All nets will be opened by 6:30 A.M.

"W" is for...

...Wet.

Apparently, it rained hard overnight in the Lake Lotus area. Morning skies were completely clear before dawn but the property was saturated and did not really dry out all morning. Not a good situation for banding in our experience. Birds tend to stay tucked away, unless they are rubbing against the soaked leaves to bathe like Hummingbirds were doing. Otherwise, we were soggy.



We did not hear many birds throughout the morning. Our one (!) banded bird was a super worn molting female Northern Cardinal. She has seen better dresses but is coming out of Mommy mode so she will be much prettier soon.



Then things got quiet. We did catch a juvenile Carolina Wren, but it escaped the bag on the way back to the table. However, it flew up to a snag nearby and made Andrew notice something up in the vegetation above. A large Air Potato vine was reaching up about 40 feet high and it seemed to be trailing something underneath. Andrew hauled it out of the tree and was surprised to find it was flowers hanging there.

We have observed Air Potato in the area for more than a decade and none of us have ever seen one blooming. Seemed they only spread by tubers, which is mainly true, but those had to start from somewhere, right. Chicken and egg thing. Potatoes come from somewhere and the ones you get in the store do bloom.

Time for research! According to the IFAS Extension of the University of Florida: "Although air potato rarely flowers in Florida, the plant can produce small, fragrant flowers that arise from the leaf axils and grow in loose clusters up to four inches long. Male and female flowers are found on separate plants. No fruits or male flowers have ever been observed in Florida."

Interesting.



The Air Potato Beetles are appearing in larger numbers in many areas of the property. They need to catch up!



One of our resident Limpkin was near the marsh just across the fence and wandering to and fro. No calling this morning.



There were many Grasshoppers hanging out on the wet grasses waiting to dry out, like this brown one. So many species, so little time for research this week...



The wooded area behind the net lanes have undergone big changes over the Summer. Grape vines have covered vast swathes of the forest floor and many old snags and branches have fallen during the many storms in the past few months. Where you find downed tree material, you soon find fungus feeding on it.



Nearby, an Orb weaver (probably a Tropical Orb weaver) was enjoying a late morning meal. Closer inspection revealed it to be the last of some dragonfly species.



There are several patches of Sensitive Briar spreading throughout the lanes and back in the pine flat woods. This one was being visited by a metallic green bee.



We are going to end with a great collection of Kate's macro work this morning among the grasses. Not a ton of time to track down exact species, so if anyone knows then we can update later.

We do recognize Earwigs. Don't see them all the time as they shuffle around in the leaf litter, but we remember being terrified by them as children while exploring in the woods. Not dangerous. So they say...



Another spider for the morning. Looks related to Long-jawed Orb-weavers but hard to tell from this angle. Nice droplet web, though.



A two-fer! A Grasshopper and Leaf Hopper having a chat. Possibly a Rosemary Grasshopper?



Beetle time! There are a lot of beetles in the state in all colors and shapes. Most of them are overlooked. Kate did not miss them. We could take insect portraits all day, if we chose to.



Ok, maybe a hopper? Too cute to pass up despite those spines!



Beetles have to start somewhere. This one is in the larval stage which looks a lot like Ladybugs before they form their round, spotted carapace.



So...not skunked, but perplexed. Migrants should be in the nets by now. Winds are odd to the North and the Pacific is super stormy while the Atlantic sleeps. Just need one more big gust to shift toward the southeast. Hoping tomorrow starts the more interesting part of the early season.
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, August 19th.
All nets will be opened by 6:25 A.M.

Session 10 Begins

Ah, the beginning of the next Session. Number 10. Lanes are cleared and most of the day was spent clearing some remaining trouble spots, repairing broken net lines and catching the same thing we capture every first week of August: Baby Carolina Wrens. It did rain the night before, so we had a fairly pleasant morning, tempture-wise. No real sauna as we usually find.



We have a new volunteer on site, Melanie, who was given the task of banding the first of our morning Wrens. Nice to have someone to get things rolling as Andrew and Richard were busy repairing lines and sprucing up overgrown areas where we can.



The rain for the past few weeks has caused the Little Wekiva to rise even higher than last year in a consistent fashion. So much so, that Andrew moved Net 23 back toward Net 18. It is now designated Net 24. Chances of reaching the lake at this point are slim to none. As Andrew's Dad used to say, "Slim to none, and Slim left town..." Maybe late Fall, but the water is encroaching closer and closer to the end of the lanes.



It is interesting to look at past data and see that, almost exclusively, all we band during the first week of August are juvenile Wrens. Typically, we catch 3. This year it was a total of 5, so species seems to being doing well this year.



Another task we set to is looking for Air Potato Beetles. Last week we found only signs that they were in the area since leaves were being eaten. Today we found many adults all over the property. This bad photo shows one hiding under the foliage.



Our last bird was the 5th Carolina Wren of the morning. The main crew was there, and Melanie is 3rd from the right. Thanks, again, Melanie! We look forward to your help in the future.



Records show that migrants arrive next week. Mostly early warblers. Time to gear up for real science. Just get those spiders out of our face for a bit, please.
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, August 12th.
All nets will be opened by 6:25 A.M.

Preparing for Session 10

Time to get readied for the next Session at Lake Lotus. Session 10, in fact. Can't believe it has been so long since we first opened nets on this wonderful property. The past year was a bit dicey with rain and hurricanes dominating and restricting many weekends so we hope this year is a bit drier. However, it is not looking that promising yet. In fact, rains yesterday have begun to flood the lake end of the lanes already. More on that later.

We arrived early. The temperatures were not oppressive as the rain left a cooling air first thing. Andrew began the day at 6:30 by beginning clean up on the out of the way nets that could not be reached by the rangers. Those rangers did a fantastic job mowing the lanes throughout the property in the past couple of weeks, by the way.



Richard changed his mind and decided to help out with the minimal spruce-up. His native plantings are doing very well this year. The Yaupon Holly, particularly, is exploding in foliage and berries and should provide food and forage for years to come.



Kate showed up about the same time and helped weed out some of the vegetation. There is maybe a bit more Air Potato growth this year but there are signs of the beetles clearing some areas so we hope they catch up as the month wears on. Muscadine Grape is getting a tad pesky, again.



Susan and Phyllis hacked away in another section of the lanes like Net 14. Grasses are very healthy. Last year, Hurricane Irma flooded them before the Indigo Buntings could take advantage of the seeds. Perhaps we can be spared this year and be able to capture and band more buntings.



Christine made it down to Net 23 and reported it was flooded. It was not on Andrew's visit last week. This new breach in the river bank is much like the one farther down that made us abandon Net 21.



That past view matched this one and now the first breach is a full on flood leading toward the lake. Executive decision: Good-bye Net 23, welcome Net 24 which will be set back toward Net 18 next week. We never caught much in 23, anyway. Wind comes through the wrong way.



We have a trail cam that we check from time to time and after our meeting with the new rangers they revealed the fact that they also added a cam near ours. Not sure exactly what they are looking for as it is set fairly high on the tree. Perhaps to identify people that are wandering over without permission. Like the guy jogging down the trail past Andrew before he left for the morning...?



Back behind the banding table, several blossoms were spotted among the small oak seedlings. We are leaning toward Ipomoea pandurata (eep-oh-MEE-uh pand-yoor-RAY-tuh) while doing basic searches.



We took a longer break for Summer this year and are looking forward to a new Session. We are getting invitations for more demos at festivals in the future so who knows what we will discover in the next 10 months. Stay tuned!
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, August 5th.
All nets will be opened by 6:20 A.M.