Balls Of Doom And The Widder Woman Down Under

QUICK! Without scrolling down, ... what are these?



Yup, Black Widow egg cases ... inside each one are all the black widows you could ever want to see.

In my back porch renovation work, I had to demolish the old water damaged stoop. I actually did that step earlier, but had left a small pile of debris for later removal.
When I got back at it last week, the first thing I grabbed to move was a half plastic barrel that had been upside down.
This involved reaching under the edge to get a grip. As I did, the thought crossed my mind that I should have flipped it with a stick first, in case there was a widow under there.

By that time though, my fingers were already committed and I flipped the barrel to find ...

... this young lady about 10 inches from my fingers ... which was way TOO close for ANY spider (aaaaaaacckkkkk!), but especially this one.

Here is a topside view of my southern black widow spider ... just before she and her children were killed in an industrial accident.

I knew Florida had a brown widow spider, but did not realize that we actually have 4 species of widow spiders in the state ... 3 natives and one introduced species.

What the hell? Native outnumbering exotics? Can this be?

The Florida Department of Agriculture site says,

"Formerly, most bites by black widows (almost all by female spiders) occurred in outhouses, but presently, Latrodectus bites occur most frequently when the spider is trapped against human skin, either by reaching under objects where the spider is hiding or when putting on clothing, gloves or shoes containing the spider. Widow spiders are generally very timid and only bite in self-defense when they accidentally contact humans. "

Outhouses?

You picturing what I'm picturing?

Ouch.

Also,

" Bite symptoms are systemic, spreading through the lymphatic system, and usually start about 1-3 hours after the bite. The most common symptoms are intense pain, rigid abdominal muscles, muscle cramping, malaise, local sweating, nausea, vomiting, and hypertension. If left untreated, Latrodectus bite symptoms usually last 3-5 days. Calcium gluconate and/or antivenin may be administered to relieve or counteract symptoms."

So, it doesn't sound like most folks would die from the widow's bite, but for a few days, you might wish you had.

So, be careful out there and take a moment to safely check anything that's been stored for awhile.

Be especially careful on those trips to the outhouse.

Bug-eating Birds, Bats, Babes, and Barbeque

I don't eat bugs knowingly ... and I'm using the term nonentomologically to include all kinds of creepy crawlies.

I appreciate those who do .... the lizards, birds, Andrew Zimmern, fish, etc ... but the idea repulses me.

On my porch, near the cardboard Yuengling box stuffed with junk and a nest, the bug eater below is incredibly busy.
She is back and forth constantly, always working to keep her babies fed.

I say she, but I suppose this is a dual effort and both parents are working to keep the chicks happy.

And who could blame them ... baby birds are so ... cute?
Really?
I mean ... THAT is cute to you?

Looks like Sid Vicious waking up from a long night of drugs, slam dancing , and bar fights.


Now these are cute.
Emma, Lynn, and Corinne ... the college roomies.
They are at the Bat House on the campus of the mighty Florida Gators awaiting the exodus of the 60,000 bug-eatin' bats that inhabit the batty abode.
The bats cleverly waited until it was just too dark for any decent photos, but I did get ...


... this lone, slightly fuzzy shot of a single bat zipping out to munch insects.
There really were 59,999 others, I promise. They poured out and zoomed all around us ... I just couldn't get a decent photo of the others.
They had quite a crowd of onlookers and if you are in the area, it's worth a visit to see so many fellow mammals at one time.


Sorry I didn't post Sunday ... I really meant to do so.
My plan was to work on the house in the morning and post in the hottest part of the day when the A/C would feel pretty delicious ... but I just kept going.
I'm replacing two porch step assemblies this summer and one has some light water damage where it joins the house.
Ack!!! I knew that gutter joint dripped directly on to the porch ... but did I fix it with a squirt of caulk?
Nooooooooo ... that would be too much trouble wouldn't it?
Dang it!

Thus, a simple job becomes a bigger job, but it's nothing serious.


Oh, and my other excuse is BBQ.
I had 5 college students to feed for supper, so they put me to "work" over a hot grill in the afternoon.

We had a great dinner (bbq chicken, salad, fresh green beans, roasted corn, and mud pie) with no small amount of zany conversation, including this gem.



Corinne, Emma, and Katie were going on and on about the best cheesecake in the world, which they swear is some restaurant in Atlanta where they ate last summer.

At one point, Katie brought up the physical appearance of the chef who came out to the table to see how things were.
They all agreed he was not what they expected for a desert chef.


"He was so rough looking." Katie said, and they all agreed.


I saw my opening and I seized it ...

"Never judge a cook by it's cover", I advised.



Maybe you had to be there, but the eye-rolling that ensued was impressive, let me tell ya.

That was only a few minutes before my grand finale, which was an innocent toss of Bear's ball (while still seated around the table) which struck the ice tea pitcher, capsizing it and exploding ice tea across the room.

One of those shots, I would not have made, had I been trying to do so.


I will not play ball at the table.
I will not play ball at the table.
I will not ...

Lizard Lounge Off: Vote For The Most Lithesome Lizard

Which lizard will win the coveted "Lithesome Lizard" award?
The decision is yours.

It's a megamezozoic smackdown pitting the verdant talents of the Carolina Anole against the cryptic subtlety of the Fence Lizard.

Let's meet the contenders ...


First up is Anole, known for his ability to change colors using special cells called chromatophores. Each chromatophore is a little packet of pigment. If he needs to be green, Anole shrinks the brown chromatophores and expands the green ones.
Imagine looking at a green umbrella that is closed and pointing directly at you.
You should be seeing a small circle of green ... just a pinpoint really.
Now imagine your friend holding the umbrella opens it while still pointing it at you.
Whoa! Green city!
Simple.
Except ... you can't do it, chromatophoreless human.

For the talent requirement, Anole will perform his territorial, lizard equivalent of the primate male's beating of the chest. In the picture above, Anole is composing himself and mentally preparing for the event.

And there we have it ladies and gentlemen!

A perfect flaring of the red throat patch, look at me, look at me, display.

This is really going to earn some points with the judges.

Now it's time for the challenger, Fence.

Fence is unable to change colors like Anole, but sports a treebarkian camo pattern that allows Fence to blend into the background of his favorite habitat, (no not fences) Oak trees.

Fence's first event is titled, "Being The Tree".

It's a beautiful rendition of tree bark with just a hint of pensiveness.

Very well done, Fence.
Fence's talent entry should be a favorite of many of you who read Pure Florida ...

... A perfectly executed tree hug!

Outstanding Fence! Well done, well done!

Feeling cocky after that performance, Fence is posing and playing to the crowd.

Careful Fence, excessive celebration may be penalized!

There you have it folks, the first Lizard Lounge Off competition has come to a close.

All that's left is the judging and that is up to you.

Who will be voted the coveted "Lithesome Lizard" award?

Please vote early and often ... this is Florida after all.

Don't Text Me About All The Fish You Caught While I Am Sweating In The Yard

It's cooler today, only 92 at 2 PM.
I've been working in the "yard" following the shade mostly. As soon as the job I'm doing becomes exposed to the sun, I move to a shadier zone that has some job to do.

This summer, I've hired Emma and Junior for a host of grunty, grueling jobs that need to be done. Some are torturous and some are not too painful, so it's a mix of pain and less pain.
They cleaned all my aquariums a few days ago. They had sat out under the oaks for a year and become positively fuzzyfilthified.
This qualifies as a not too bad job as it involves water and getting wet is part of the duty.
Hauling away tons of scratchy brush into the woods and stacking firewood in the summer heat qualifies as pretty miserable ... ("it's not the heat it's the humidity " ... no DA, it's both)

Beloved, yet dead trucks are always eager to prove they can still be useful. My old 1982 GMC (pre government takeover) S-15 Sierra proved to be a handy aquarium drying rack after the cleanification.

Never throw anything away prematurely ... especially trucks.

This is my old tilapia aquaculture area after the first stage of clean up.
Yes, that is after ... it was a jungle before.

I am redesigning and prepping for a start up ... not tilapia though.
Something else.
Tell ya later.


Here's some of the firewood that Emma stacked this week. That's mainly from the branches of the two oaks I removed. I'm just now getting to the trunks.
Need some oak?
We couldn't burn all that in 3 Florida winters.
Maybe one of the local BBQ places could use some.


Attached to the barn shed is a pole shed roof for storing stuff ... like more firewood than you could ever use.
Today I climbed up on a step ladder to take a look at the barn roof which needs some major TLC and I discovered ...

... that I was growing small trees on the shed roof in a rich composting mix of decaying oak leaves.
I knew there was a branch or two up there, but I had no clue that I had a soddy starting.

Action shot!

So I pulled the cart up into a strategic position and raked the soil and leaf mixture off for transport to the woods.

While I was doing this, the adult barred owl landed on a branch about 20 feet away and stared at me. My camera was in the barn, so I slipped down the ladder, grabbed it, and slipped back up.

As soon as I raised the camera, the owl flapped off.

Oh well.

I think it was about then that Junior, who is spending some time down near Crystal River at his good buddies house, texted me:

"18 fish today! Eleven rock bass, 4 sharks, one grouper, one blowfish, and one sea trout."

grrrrrrr. I could hardly read it as the sweat rinsed the sunscreen off my skin and into my eyes.

Then ... another text:

"Mr. Jim trolled us around the sandbar and a pair of dolphins got within, like one foot of us!"

Not fair.
I swatted away the biting ants that were caught in the mix of sweat, dirt, and sunscreen on my neck, and texted him back:

"Okay, that is just waaaay too awesome to tell someone while they are doing grunt work! Be sure and take some pictures for PF. "

He responded:

"Will do, we're going spearfishing tomorrow so I'll get some then too."

Ack!!

Rub some salt in the wound, why doncha!

Barred Owl Babe In The Woods

GOTCHA!
The barred owls and their chick are a constant presence around here this time of year, but they still present a bit of a photographic challenge.

They are owls, you see, so challenge numero uno is their habit of being about in the twilight and beyond. Even though I can see him sitting on the park bench eyeing the koi pond, it's not much of a picture at night.

Then there is their habit of sitting fairly high up in my (magnificent if I do say so myself) oaks during the brighter part of the day.
The backlighting is usually so intense coupled with their altitude, that you are just wasting megapixies to shoot 'em.

This morning I went out sans Bear (whine, whine) just for a little while to scope out the owls. I walked almost all the way through the palm glade (remember the controlled burning this winter?) and then leaned against an oak tree (a smallish one, not a magnificent one) to be quiet and scan the woods.

Nothin'... and then ... I looked straight up and directly over my head was this barred owl pup.
He was a little backlit, so I flashed him. (don't even ...)
He didn't seem to mind the attention and I left him there after shooting my fill.

Now to focus on getting the park bench barred owl shot.

The walk back to the house took me past this volunteer Brown-eyed Susan swallowing up my baby Satsuma tree.
Two great plants in that picture, let me tell ya'

The blueberries are still producing, but we are on the downhill slope of the season here. My days of gobbling them by the repeated handfuls are dwindling and I may have to actually purchase them in a few weeks.

The horror!!


"Good Eats" did a whole episode on blueberries the other night and I missed all, but the tail end of the show.

I'll have to catch that one on the rerun.

I have to run now too, there's still oak logs to cut up, datil plants to transplant, laundry to do, and Rube Goldbergian recirculating aquacultural tinkering to tinker with.

... and Bear play ... gotta do that too.

Almost Too Late Tuesday Mom Pond Critters Post

Spent today running some errands and not getting great owl shots ... I can hear them right now outside my window in the rain ... taunting me.

Soon come.


At Mom and Dad's house last weekend, a host of critters were hanging out around the waterfolly pond.
The wrens are raising a brood in the corner of the hurricane shutters that protect the big picture window which looks out over the pond.
On my own porch, the wrens are raising a brood in a Yuengling box full of tools to go back to the barn.
They won't be going anywhere for a while.


This frog was hanging out on the pond's rim, still as a rock, as a black racer slipped by in the surrounding shrimp plants. ( Racer not pictured here ... you see, they race and I ...).

The pond is also supporting tadpoles already.

If you build it and all that ...

Pond Critters At Harbor Branch

During my visit at Harbor Branch, I used some of my lunch time to walk along the ponds behind the aquaculture research buildings.

I was not alone.


Now you see him ...

... now you don't.

So much of nature photography is being there so that when something cool happens, your odds of "being in the right place at the right time" increase dramatically.

So it's not just luck, in fact, there is no such thing as luck.

I don't believe in luck or accidents.

Being there, yes. Luck, no.

Mistakes, yes. Accidents, no.

So it was no accident that I was the lucky guy who got these pics by being the first person to walk the pond during that lunch break.

On my way back, I said hello to a small group of my classmates who were walking out towards the ponds.
They only went as far as the woodstork and pelican below, so I think they probably never saw the softshell turtle or the big alligator that I spooked off the bank of another pond beyond this one.
Lucky me.

I'm Gonna Share My Father's Day Card With You

One of the neat little traditions around Pure Florida Headquarters (PFHQ) is my darling dnalings habit of always making us cards for special occasions rather than buying them.
Poor things ... it's expected of them now.
I've loved each and every one of them and you can bet I've kept every one through the years too!

What follows below is my Father's day card, a bit of a collaboration among the spawn, although Emma was the main artiste.
It's too fun to keep to myself, so I am sharing it here with you.
Enjoy, ... and Happy Father's Day to you Fathers out there.

And what was the cool toy attached to this card?

OH YEAH!

Get ready Wonderdog, we're going outside to train.

Mom's Waterfolly

Top left pic:

The hole as I left it on Mother's Day with pond and waterfall just stored in it. St. Augustine had heavy rains that made this whole site too soggy to work for weeks.

Bottom left:

Indentured servant re-excavating pond hole after heavy rains reshaped it.

Top Right:

Newspapers spread as a cushion. We don't have rocks in the soil, so this step was probably not even needed.

Bottom Right:

The pond in place with waterfall flowing. The rockage is just stuff Mom had lying around. We are taking her some additional rocks soon.

She loves it and is ready to add koi.

The pea gravel surrounding the pond is kind of dark in that picture as it had just been unearthed.

When I was a kid, we had an outside eating/relaxing area called, "the screen house", that consisted of a few picnic tables inside a screened enclosure. For a floor, Mom and Dad had just spread about 6 inches of pea gravel so if a kid spilled something it was no big deal.

The screen house is long gone now, but as I was trying to landscape her pond last week and running out of materials, I remembered the screen house floor.

The area of the old screen house is covered in several inches of ferns and pine needles now, but when I scratched that away with a rake ... there was the the gravel.

Sweet.

So, I mined gravel from that site to spread around the pond perimeter.

In the picture, they are fresh out of the rich black dirt of Dad's yard, so they don't have their sparkle back yet, but it shouldn't take many rains to bring out their color again.

Reuse, recycle.

Sawdust, Sunscreen, and Sweat ... oh, and owls too.

Man, I worked like a dog today ... all day.
Actually, the dog was inside in the air conditioning on his blanket ... so I don't really get that saying.

How to make a June day in Florida seem even hotter.
Step One: Apply sunscreen in abundance to your outer parts.
Step Two: Fire up the chainsaw and tackle that oak tree you cut down a month ago.
Step Three: Do lots of overhead cutting so the sawdust rains down upon you and coats you like a drumstick at Col. Sanders place.


Nicely breaded KFC ... heehee.

I chainsawed the two downed oaks, dragged branches ... endless branches into the woods for critter brush piles, cleaned up the dormant aquaculture tank area, and gathered beaucoup yard debris in an effort to debubba the yard. Now the hauling trailer hooked to the JEEP looks like something Fred Sanford would be hauling.


The yard is better though ... strange how things accumulate back there when you have no neighbors to worry about ... no Jones's to keep up with.
Cindy ... I even cleaned up the dead trampoline .


I also barbecued 3 slabs of ribs and a flat of chicken thigh leg quarters for a Father's Day dinner this weekend in St. Augustine.
Yes, I know I'm a father and technically not supposed to be cooking this weekend, but I like barbecuing and besides, it's for MY father.


If you've been visiting Pure Florida for awhile, you know that each summer a pair of barred owls raise their whiny chicks here in our woods. These owls have totally adjusted to our presence, so it's pretty normal to see them throughout the day, every day.


Like most owls, they are just ... suddenly ... there.
They do a lot of swooping across the yard, and they are really vocal.
Often, I just get the feeling I'm not alone and when I look up, there he is, sitting just above me on a low branch.

Pretty neat.

Bear has noticed the owls and is convinced they are the biggest chickens he's ever seen and is frustrated by the fact that they fly better and higher than the banties he's ... um, ... cut his teeth on.

Fighting Conchs and Apple Snails

Size Reference ... FC's size eleven sneakers vs. the tilapia nest.

I intended to include this photo in my Savannas State Preserve post a few days ago, but failed to do so. The tilapia nest photos I did post had no size reference near the holes and I really wanted you to sense how massive these nests were.

Although the tilapia in this pond are exotics and detrimental to our native bottom nesters like bluegill and shellcrackers, I can also see these exposed tilapia craters acting like breeding chambers for some amphibians and insects as the pond retreats and the fishy predators drop back or are eaten by wading birds.
Every cloud and all that ...


A native apple snail.

Speaking of clouds ... one dark cloud hanging over Florida's native species is the exotic Channeled Apple Snail. They are yet another release from the aquarium pet trade and they, like the tilapia, plecos, and a host of cichlids are probably here to stay in Florida waters.

At Harbor Branch, researchers are breeding native apple snails for replenishing wild stocks around Okeechobee that have been replaced by the exotic snails.

Our snail kites depend on apple snails and the adults apparently can handle the exotics, but young kites have trouble eating the larger Channeled Apple Snails.

Hopefully, the restocking program will balance things out. Apple snails are so easy to raise, this animal seems like a perfect classroom project to get kids involved in wildlife restoration.


Here's a friendly native, the Fighting Conch.

This one is just a wee thing, born and bred at Harbor Branch.
Fighting conchs are edible and a possible commercial crop for those of you who like conch chowder, conch fritters, ceviche ... (insert Bubba Gump litany here).
... And who doesn't?

Presently, the queen conch is the primary food conch down here in subtropics, and their populations are under great pressure, so adding the fighting conch to the menu could help queens recover in the wild.

They are also in demand in the marine aquarium trade as algae munchin' tank cleaners. In fact, I'm thinking about growing some myself.



My aquacultural entrepreneurial itch got scratched big time down there at Harbor Branch.
I have the brains, the land, and the passion ... so something's going to happen.
Risky business though, so we will start small.
Food fish, bait fish, crustaceans, mollusks, aquatic plants .... what to do, what to do ... MUST FOCUS!

I'll keep you posted.


Hmmmm ... let's see ... this post contained two exotics and one native ... that's about normal for Florida these days.

Wordless Wednesday ... Is It Wednesday? Swamp Mallow

Savanna Sandhill Cranes

Whew!
I have been on the road alot this past week or so ... how do you travelers stay slim?
Road food is way too fatty, carby, megaportiony.

Let's see, since Monday a week ago, I've been in Fort Pierce for 5 days, then to St. Aug for an overnighter pond workday, then home to PFHQ, then back to St. Aug for a pond workday, and now, finally home again to PFHQ.

I know that's nothing for you jetsetters, but I have roots.

When I was in Fort Pierce, I used every afternoon to find some kind of wild place ... the natural kind that is.
My best find was Savannas State Preserve. I only visited one small access point on this long park, so there's much to return to see, but I had a great late afternoon visit there.


I had the entire park area to myself as I cruised down a bumpy (most roads are bumpy in the JEEP) dirt road to an overlook over a drying freshwater pond.
The shallow, shrinking waters were concentrating the small fish and putting them in range of wading birds like egrets, woodstorks, ibis, and herons.
Even terns were dipping into the action ... the ocean is only about a mile away.

This pond, had shrunk far from it's shores and the water seemed shallow and wadeable everywhere judging from the presence of egrets and their kin in all it's regions. The boardwalk seemed limiting and the sandy shore of the shrunken pond beckoned, so I took a stroll along the water's edge, hoping for some action.

There were large swirls and skittery small fish, so I assume a few bass were enjoying the concentrated food also.


There definitely were tilapia, although I never actually saw one in the very shallow shore waters.

I saw their evidence.
The now dry shoreline was pockmarked with huge tilapia nest craters that the receding waters had exposed. Other craters were visible in the shallow waters, one after another.

That is one thing I noticed about freshwater bodies around Fort Pierce, everyone I looked in over that week had blue tilapia in them.

Now, tilapia are the perfect aquaculture fish, but that and the dinner plate is the only place we sing their praises. They don't belong in our wild Florida waters, but they are here and here to stay unless someone comes up with a magic bullet for them.

Up here around PFHQ, we just don't see them often thanks to our cold winters ... although they are present on the state's property (University of Florida campus) which is ironic since the state makes it tough for we private guys to possess them ... even though they apparently have let them loose ...
... I'm soapboxing here aren't I?

Sorry.

Back to the Savannas and the birds ...



The Woodies were out feeding and they really need this type of habitat. Their feeding method is to open their bill and swish back and forth through the water. When they contact something, SNAP! The bill closes and the prey gets gulpificationized.

Obviously, this doesn't work well in deep water where fish, tadpoles, crawfish, etc are dispersed over a wide area.
It's sweetly efficient in this drying lake situation though.


This sand hill crane and her chick popped in right after I walked back out of the lake and up on to the visitor boardwalk ... after getting closeups of the crane below.

I thought I was done. I just happened to glance back to where I had just been and there they were, so I got this one shot of the two of them.


I shot a bazillion bad shots of this crane as I inched closer and closer to him. I kept expecting him to fly so each shot seemed like the last one, but moving slow and pausing often, I got to within 40 feet, and then I didn't push it anymore, as that was plenty close enough for a large bird in my Sony's lens.


He was pretty relaxed. There was lots of looking around, feeding, walking, and finally some preening in the late day light.




No, since your wondering ... I did not molest any alligators on this sojourn.

In fact ... weirdly, I did not see the first gatory face in the two hours I spent in and out of the pond.

I don't know if they saw me or not.