Feathered friends

While others may scatter during the summer months, some birds make Southwest Florida their home year-round

By BETSY CLAYTON
bclayton@news-press.com

An oprey takes a bath in a lake at Miramar Lakes Beach. Photos by ANDREW WEST/news-press.com
Perhaps these dog days should be called the fowl days of summer. Or the days of loyal feathered friends.

The birds out there now are not the tuneful migrating songbirds. They're not the flamboyant migrating shorebirds. They're not the stunning migrating raptors.

They're just year-round residents like you and me.

That they stick it out through these sticky times in itself is cause to pay them tribute.

That they offer stellar sightings as they go about their year-round routines is cause to brave the mosquitoes and go watch them.

A red-shouldered hawk snatching a black racer. A red-winged blackbird flitting between branches. A barred owl barking, "Hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo; hoo, hoo; hoo, hooo-aw!" A cardinal calling like a video-game audio track. A great blue heron hunting like a sentinel to patience. A cattle egret following a tractor in a field like that's its full-time job. • See more SW Fla. birds
The images create a panoramic Southwest Florida summer. Osprey — forever present here. They entertain passersby with their splashy baths. The serious fish hawks take on a comical note when they scrub-a-dub-dub in lakes or in wet areas along roadways.

Sandhill cranes — almost always seen in pairs. They stretch their long legs and tall necks as they show their red foreheads to anyone with a keen eye who spots their gray bodies.

Crested caracara — a prime sighting for the drive to Lake Okeechobee. They attack egrets in the true sense of their falcon heritage. Bird-watchers stand in awe of their long legs, dark brown feathers and bare red faces.

They look you in the eye.
A pair of sandhill cranes search for their next meal on the Charlotte Correctional Institution grounds on June 12. These large birds, measuring 4 feet tall, sometimes migrate to Southwest Florida in the winter, but some are Floridians year-round and number somewhere around 5,000. The birds are usually seen in fields away from the coast.

They urge you to watch them longer.

They dare you to say that migratory birds make for better sightings.

EASY BIRDING

Need some help identifying birds?

Some Southwest Florida places are especially geared toward birding newcomers, offering trails from which to bird-watch and also visitor centers loaded with knowledgeable naturalists. A sampling:

• Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium, Fort Myers, 275-3435

• J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel, 472-1100.

• National Audubon Society Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Naples, (239) 348-9151

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SIGHTINGS
Bay scallop season opens in Big Bend area
I.D.: Thanks in part to the Shell Oil logo, the scallop may be the most familiar shell in the world by sight, if not by name. This week, however, Floridians have a chance to see if they can round up a couple of gallons of the tasty bivalves, on which the season opened along the Big Bend section of the Gulf Coast.

Scallops are bivalves that begin life as free-floating larvae; attach to blades of seagrass as very small shells; and then live about 1¤ years as free-swimming filter feeders that move about by means of jet propulsion. They eat microscopic algae and plankton, and are eaten by starfish, crabs and people.

Scallops were common enough in Pine Island Sound, before the Sanibel Causeway was built in the early 1960s, to support a significant local fishing industry. Now they have become so scarce they are protected in local waters, north to Hernando County.

Q & A
Guides or charters wanted for scalloping
QUESTION: My husband and I are going this weekend to Crystal River. Do you have any suggestions about guides or charters for scalloping? Carol Cook-Ohner, by e-mail

ANSWER: Capt. Charlie Slider of Aquamarine Images in Crystal River offers scalloping trips for $45 per person, including snorkeling gear. Info: (888) 732-2692.

Crystal River has many dive shops and boat liveries that specialize in manatee sightseeing in the river springs, and also may take scallopers to the Gulf shallows. Try American Professional Diving Center (352) 563-004 — $49.50 per person, minimum four people.

SITE TO SEE
Scallop harvest area expanded last summer
ABOUT IT: Florida's waters designated for scallop harvesting were expanded last summer to include the area south of the Suwannee River to the Hernando/Pasco County line. Scalloping is legal northward to the west side of the Mexico Beach Canal in Bay County.

The grass flats off Crystal River were reopened last summer for the first time in seven years, according to dive master and Capt. Charlie Slider. He said his parties never failed to limit last year.

Tuesday on an exploratory trip with his family they picked up 7 1/2 gallons in about two hours.

REGULATIONS: Scallops my be harvested only by hand or hand dip net, for recreational use only. The daily bag limit is two gallons of whole scallops or one pint of meat per day, per person, not to exceed 10 gallons of unshucked scallops or 1/2-gallon (four pints) of meat. Scallop season goes from July 1 to Sept. 10

FISHING TIP
Behavior makes scallops easy to harvest
FISHING TIP: Scallops are creatures of the seagrass beds that rarely are found in depths greater than 8 feet. They are easily gathered with snorkeling gear including a mask, snorkel, swim fins, weight belt, mesh collecting bag and gloves.

Scallops often are concentrated in seagrasses along the edges of sandy potholes, which they avoid to decrease detection by predators. They have crude blue eyes around the edges of their shells that can detect motion and changes in light, but their clacking attempts at flight are better suited to avoiding starfish than divers.

Big Canoe Raptors
When the boss sees a hawk,
Scribe writes about hawks

By Milt Smith
I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but then again, my mother didn't have any dumb kids. I know which side of my journalistic bread has butter on it, so when the boss sees hawks, I write about hawks. Heck, if Bennett reported seeing the abominable snowman crossing Petit Ridge Road, I'd even do an article about Big Foot (after ascertaining, of course, where Bennett had been and what he'd been drinking immediately prior to the sighting).
Actually, our observant editor has already blabbed to Smoke Signals readership in the January issue what he was going to tell me about the red-tailed hawk he spied on Petit Ridge. So what more is there to tell?
Lots.
First, a word about "hawks."
For many folks they are a lot like "pines." If it's green all year round and has needles it's a "pine." Never mind that there are other conifers that fit that description, like spruce and hemlock. Well, for lots of folks I know, if it has a curved beak, sharp talons and perches on tree limbs or fence posts, it's a "hawk." Never mind that there are birds of prey that are not hawks, e.g., the falcons. I point this out not to quibble, but to make readers aware that all daytime raptors are not "hawks."
Red-Tail aka Chicken Hawk
The handsome red-tail that Bennett observed is a true hawk and perhaps the most ubiquitous of all North American hawks. Red-tails, often called "chicken hawks," are found in all the lower 48 and north through Canada on into Alaska. As with most widely distributed wild animals, there is broad variation in coloration with distinct regional morphs. Despite these differences in appearance, these birds all belong to the same species, buteo jamaicensis. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the species name derives from Jamaica, for this omnipresent creature is distributed throughout the Caribbean as well as the North American continent.
The Eastern red-tailed hawk, which inhabits Big Canoe, has a distinctive reddish brown tail. The throat and breast are white with a band of dark flecks across the belly. The underside of the wing as seen in flight is off-white with fine dark bands radiating from the body along the trailing edge to the wing tip. As viewed from above in flight, or while perched, the back and wings appear mottled brown.
Red-tails are among our larger hawks with a wing-span of about four feet. They are approximately twenty inches long from beak to tip of tail. Young birds lack the red tail and are generally more subdued in coloration than adults. Tails don't turn red until the second year.
Gigantic McDonalds
These handsome birds have a varied diet (I once saw one sitting on a fence post with a garter snake in its grasp), but prey primarily on small rodents. To them, Big Canoe is a gigantic McDonalds and our abundant squirrel population provides an endless supply of four-footed Big Macs! Early this winter, soon after our bird feeders went back up and squirrels began to congregate, Gail and I had a young red-tail make regular visits to our yard. Every time he appeared, the squirrels magically disappeared. Unfortunately, they reappeared just as magically soon after the red-tail moved on.
If you should see a large hawk with a dark barred tail, mottled brown back and white breast flecked with dark brown streaks, it will probably be a juvenile red-tail. You will easily recognize the adult should one pay you a visit. If you want to see a red-tail up close and personal stop in at the Platt Museum upstairs at Canoe Lodge. A mounted specimen shares one of the glass cases with broad-winged and sharp-shinned hawks and a collection of songbirds. Also included is a mounted American kestrel, which is not a hawk but a falcon, even though it is commonly called "sparrow hawk."
The falcon difference
That prompts me to write a few words about the differences between falcons and hawks. Generally, but not always, the falcons are sleeker and swifter than hawks. They prey mostly on other birds, which they capture or stun in flight using their clenched feet as fists to knock their prey senseless. This is usually accomplished at the end of a spectacular high-speed dive, called a stoop. Once captured, falcon prey are dispatched with a spine-breaking bite to the neck. (The accompanying picture shows a trained falcon feeding on a kill.)
Hawks, on the other hand, usually surprise their prey on the ground where they pounce upon the unsuspecting victim. Hawks do not use their beaks to render the coup de grace as falcons do, but rather repeatedly grasp the prey with their sharp talons until the succession of punctures kills it.
Three owls, great horned, barred, and barn, complete the raptor display at Canoe Lodge.
Now if Bennett should happen to spy an owl some night, I'll probably do an article on our nocturnal raptors.
Here is a list of hawks and falcons whose year-round, seasonal, or migration ranges might bring them to Big Canoe.
Big Canoe Diurnal Raptors:
Hawks
Red-tailed
Broad-winged
Sharp-shinned
Red-shouldered
Coopers
Falcons
American Kestre
Merlin
Peregrin

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