february 2007 along the boardwalk newsletter corkscrew swamp sanctuary

8/9/2019 February 2007 Along the Boardwalk Newsletter Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

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Use a combination of field marks,time of year, water levels, and commonsense.

Although the bills are colored dif-ferently, the angle of lighting can leadto errors. So dont rely solely on bills.Instead, look at legs and feet.

Immature Little Blue Herons areseen all year. Bills are two-toned (lightnear the head, dark near the tip) and legsand feet are light greenish-gray.

Snowy Egrets are seen toward theend of the dry season when the water isshallow and the fish are concentrated.Bills are uniformly dark, legs are black,and feet are bright yellow.

Boardwalk Along the Along theBoardwalk

Swamp SanctuaryCorkscrew

www.corkscrew.audubon.orgFebruary, 2007

Quick ID GuideHow does one distinguish between the little white waders: Little Blue Heron, Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret?

A note about storks..Dear Volunteers,

Over the past few months, Jasonand I have been very busy monitoringWood Storks, making on average twoflights per week since October.

Your assistance was sought to iden-tify feeding locations and even to ob-serve foraging storks. The response wasoverwhelmingly positive! I apologizefor not responding to each and everyemail or phone call (it really has beenthat busy!), but please know that all of your reports have been recorded.

Your service as Stork Watchershas been invaluable! Thanks in largepart to your reports, we have been ableto pinpoint foraging locations and docu-ment them with satellite imaging.

Also, your observations uncoveredmany new and important behaviors.For example, we now know that WoodStorks feast heavily on snails and otherinvertebrates during the autumn monthsbefore the nesting season (and yet, thespecies recovery plan has been basedprimarily on fish as food items).

Thank you so much for all your ob-servations, your emails and phone calls,and your dedication as volunteer natu-ralists. Keep them coming!

Respectfully,Mike KnightNatural Resources Manager

New interns bring experience, enthusiasm

Left: imm. LittleBlue HeronCenter: SnowyEgretRight: CattleEgret

Cattle Egrets are hardly ever seen.Bills are yellow. Non-breeding birds(Aug.-Feb.) have dark legs while breed-ing birds (Mar.-July) have orange legs.

To correctly identify the bird, knowthe time of year and water levels. Look at the bill coloration as an aid, but legsand feet are what count. If black legs

and bright yel-low feet arentclearly visible,its an imma-ture LittleBlue Heron.

Matthew Muller , a Miaminative and proud University of Florida graduate, likes birding,fly fishing, and long walks on thebeach. In the fall, he will beginhis graduate education probablyat Florida State University (hissoul will be in forever turmoil)in urban development and eco-

nomics. His experience at Cork-screw has thus far been surreal.He never realized there was thismuch wildlife and this manyfriendly people in the SouthFlorida area.

Katherine Parfitt graduatedin May from Westminster Col-lege in New Wilmington, Penn-sylvania, with a Bachelor of Sci-ence degree in biology. Her de-gree courses focused on marinebiology and ecology, and she hasprevious experience as a pre-school teacher in Gainesville.

She enjoys nature and studyingrelationships between plants andanimals. She has already re-searched materials for use inCorkscrews Insect Adventure.

Kristin Samples will receiveher Bachelor of Arts degree inart from Brevard College inBrevard, North Carolina, in May

of this year. Her focus there ison the human form and on natu-ral settings, which has led her towork at an environmental edu-cation camp for gifted children.That, in turn, has interested herin working with the environmentas a wilderness steward. As acounselor at the Green RiverPreserve, she led children onhikes and backpacking trips toeducate them about plant spe-cies, animal identification andtracking, and environmentalconcerns.


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Egg laying typically begins be-tween mid March and mid April. Theaverage clutch consists of two eggs, butthe first chick hatched frequently killsthe younger chick (obligate siblicide).Incubation lasts about 28 days, and the

young fledge at five to six weeks of age.Kites eat, drink, and bathe on thewing. Food is gleaned from tree topsand flying insects are taken and eatenin flight. The favored food is large fly-ing insects such as dragonflies, but kitessometimes take nestlings and eggs of other birds, small lizards, and arborealsnakes. They also skim the tops of prai-rie grasses looking for grasshoppers.Drinking and bathing behavior is simi-lar to swallows where the bird skims

the surface of open water.Large numbers of kites gather in

post-breeding communal roosts beforemigrating to South America. The larg-est of these is around Fisheating Creek in Glades County but hundreds of kitesalso gather in Corkscrew.

Adults leave for the Brazilian win-tering grounds in mid July and, arrivefrom early October to early November.Satellite tracking has revealed that ju-venile kites, who leave as much as sixweeks after the adults, travel at abouttwice the rate and arrive on the winterrange soon after the adults.

private ranch land in Florida and Bra-zil has to be the focus of our planningeffort.

Corkscrew, Big Cypress, and theFisheating Creek areas are the majorbreeding areas for kites in Florida,which harbors most of the North Ameri-can population.

Kites are most conspicuous duringthe courtship and nest-building stagesand while feeding young. Nests are

made of small sticks, usu-ally from cypress trees, andlarge amounts of Spanishmoss and lichens. They arebuilt mainly in the tallestpine and cypress trees thatemerge above the canopy sothat parents can approach

unimpeded and drop to thenest.Despite their aerial prow-

ess, kites dont maneuverwell at low air speeds, saidMeyer. We suspect thatsone reason why they buildtheir nests in wind-exposedtree tops. Watch when anadult kite leaves the nest it wont simply flap away.

ProfileSwallows return to Capistrano,

buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio, andSwallow-tailed Kites return to Cork-screw, all on uncannily predictableschedules. Kites arrive at Corkscrewwithin a day or two of February 17.

Scientists have been using tinytransmitters and space satellites in anattempt to find out where theyve been.Its a far cry from an early try at track-ing John James Audubon used: tyingsilver cords to the legs of nestling phoe-bes and identifying two of them asadults when they returned to his Phila-delphia neighborhood the next year. Buthe had no clue where they had been.

Today we spy on birds from spaceusing tiny solar-powered transmitters

weighing less than a penny that track species such as Swallow-tailed Kites ontheir previously unknown journeys.

Kite migration routes and destina-tions were unknown until 1996 whenKen Meyer of the Avian Research andConservation Institute in Gainesvilleused six small transmitters on kites andtracked by satellite their 5,000-mile

journey through Central America tosoutheastern Brazil.

Researchers now know that thekites from Southwest Florida fly southto a savannah very similar our habitatthat borders the Brazilian Pantanal, avast wetland, during its six-month rainy season (our dryseason). There they join aresident population of Swallow-tailed Kites

Conservation was thereason for satellite tracking.Finding out which areas

are linked by a birds migra-tion gives us a powerful ar-gument for conservingthose habitats, wrote Ca-nadian Wildlife s GuyMorrison.

Kite habitat is threat-ened in both places [UnitedStates and Brazil] by large-scale agricultural develop-ment, said Meyer. Saving

Swallow-tailed KiteElanoides forficatus

Kite Notes The voice is a high-pitched peet re-

peated several times, or a high-pitched hissing whistle.

Almost 85% of fledged kites donot survive the first year.

Kites weigh 13-17 ounces, have abody length of about 24 inches, andhave a wingspan of four feet.

Kite feet are small and weak com-pared to those of other raptors.

Good book: Tracking Desire. A Jour-ney After Swallow-tailed Kites bySusan Cerulean

REFERENCE: Florida Breeding Bird Atlas(www.floridaconservation.org/bba/astk.htm

A young kite peers out fromits nest near the Ed Carlsonbench (March 23, 2001).


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february 2007 along the boardwalk newsletter corkscrew swamp sanctuary

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