April 5, 2009 - Florida Birds

This photo of a Carolina Chickadee was taken at Bald Point State Park in Florida. If you live in the northern half of the United States or the southern half of Canada, you might be thinking, “That looks like our Black-capped Chickadees.” That would be understandable because, visually, the two species are very similar, with only subtle differences. There is a more noticeable difference in their songs. Carolina Chickadees are found in the southeastern United States. Where the ranges of the two Chickadees overlap, birders can have a very hard time deciding which species they are seeing. Sometimes the two species hybridize and, even worse, each species can learn the song of the other species. Carolina Chickadees are cavity nesters, usually building their nest in a hole in a tree. One of my books says that if they are disturbed during incubation they will hiss and strike out at the intruder much like a snake would do.

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This is a close up of a Northern Mockingbird taken in Apalachicola, Florida. You might wonder why it has “Northern” in its name, because it is found in the southern two-thirds of the United States. There are about ten species of Mockingbirds in the world and most of them are found in South America. I guess that Northern Mockingbird is a good description if you take a wider view. Its Latin name, Mimus polyglottos, is also very descriptive. Polyglottos means “many tongued” and the Mockingbird does mimic the songs of other birds. Its song has many different parts and it tends to repeat a phrase 3-5 times. The bird also throws in sounds of insects, machinery, and musical instruments that it has heard. During the mating season, Mockingbirds can be heard calling all day. Because they include so many different sounds, their singing can be a pleasant listening experience. However, if one of them decides to sing all night, right outside your bedroom window, you might not feel the same way.

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John Murphy and I took a day to go birding in the Tallahassee area. He took me to Lake Henrietta where we found two Limpkins. This is a bird that I have been trying to photograph for several years. In fact, I dropped my first camera in the water at Corkscrew Swamp as I was trying to take a photo of a Limpkin. The Limpkin is a medium-sized wading bird. At 26” tall it is a little more than half the height of a Great Blue Heron. They are widespread in the American Tropics but most of the U.S. population is found in Florida. Their favorite food is the Apple Snail and they tend to be found in places that have a good population of this large snail.

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At the Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, feeders are set up outside a small building. It has a huge window that gives you close looks at the birds that come to feed. One of the visitors was this Chipping sparrow. Most of them migrate to the tropics for the winter but some spend the winter in the southern states. In the summer, they can be found across almost the entire U.S. and Canada. They have adapted to living around humans and can often be found in suburbs, city parks, and pastures. The streaks on the cap of this bird are typical of its winter plumage. In the summer, it will have a beautiful, solid rusty cap.

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I’m including this photo to show that, yes, the Red-bellied Woodpecker does indeed have a red belly. People often say this bird is misnamed, but that is because, like other woodpeckers, it is usually seen clinging to a tree. In that position, you can’t see the belly. This photo was also taken at the Tall Timbers Research Station.

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