Conchs...A Food Post, But It's Not About You, Human.

Yes, yes, ... I know. 
Conch makes great chowder, fantastic fritters, and tangy ceviche.
I get that.
But this post is not about your predatory relationship with members of Class Gastropoda.
This post is about the conchs' (and their whelky cousins) predatory ways.

So, go ahead and watch the video and then we'll continue...

Snails like the Crown Conch (Melongena corona) and the unfortunate Lightning Whelk (Busycon sinistrum) in the video are active predators and scavengers. 

The Lightning Whelk in the video is a young one. The Whelk actually grows to a much larger size than the Crown Conch.
Had the Whelk survived to maturity instead of winding up as Conch lunch, the tables could have easily been turned in this encounter.

In the video, the Conch has almost completely engulphed the Whelk, but the Whelk is not "inside" the Conch.
You are not seeing the "mouth" of the Conch with just the "apex" of the Whelk visible.

The Whelk is wrapped up and almost completely covered by the muscular foot and mantle of the Conch.

What we can't see beneath all that is the actual eating action.

Below the surface, the Conch is using its "Radula" to scrape the Whelk apart and consume it.  Radulas are sometimes described as a "toothed tongue" which gives a pretty good mental image, even if mollusks don't have true teeth.

The Radula is covered with sharp chitinous points that act like a rasp to scrape off bits of food so they can be passed into the mouth of the Conch. 

Once the Conch is finished, the Whelk shell will be totally cleaned of flesh. 

When you stroll a beach and find that "perfect" shell, all fresh looking with vibrant colors still, it's probably the leftovers from some Gastropod's lunch.

See if this has happened to you...
You are shelling on some beach, and you find a clam or cockle shell with a perfectly round hole drilled near the apex of the shell. 

Yup, a radula has been there... the Oyster Drill snails use their radula to drill THROUGH the shell of bivalves to get to the yummy flesh inside.

Impressive.

Zack Update

You may recall the injured wild Florida Kingsnake that one of my students brought to me about a month ago. This was only about two weeks after Zick, the captive bred Florida Kingsnake arrived in the classroom via UPS. I credit Zick with saving this snake's life because thanks to her presence in the classroom, the student who found this injured snake recognized it and saved it.

There's a post about Zack the injured snake, but the short story is he had an open wound about one third of the way back from his head that was more than skin deep. It looked pretty bad at the time, but I took him home to see if he could be fixed.

I doctored him with Neosporin and he did the rest.

Currently, the wound has healed over. There is a noticeable bump in his otherwise sleek appearance which is probably some scar tissue buildup. 

Apparently, there is some nerve damage at that point, because he is perfectly snakey wiggly from the scar forward, but not so much from the scar to the tail.

It's not a case of paralysis. He can move his back end, but in a more clumsy, less responsive manner. Nerve tissue being what it is, ... I'm not sure that will improve.

He doesn't seem interested in pinky mice or earthworms, or anything else I have offered yet. I know he's a snake and can go a long time without eating, but I would love to see him chomp down on some vittles.

He is maintaining his body mass, so I'm not worried about him. It just would be really reassuring to see him eat.

I've included a short, nasally narrated (stuffy nose that day) video of him basking in the sun last weekend.

He's a cutie.

Keep your scales crossed that he fully recovers.

A Weekend of Waifs

It has been a weekend of pre-Seafood Festival cooking and waifs here at PFHQ.  We spent all day yesterday cooking 30 quarts of Minorcan style clam chowder in the Southern Sisters professional kitchen.

We are not done.

By next weekend, we need to make that amount two more times.
Y'all gotta come buy some and support the Cedar Key School kids.
... otherwise, I will be eating clam chowder into 2012.

Gotta make a couple gallons of Datil Pepper relish too ... sigh.

It's for the kids, it's for the kids, it's for the kids ... (my mantra)

In between all the cooking, a few forlorn waifs turned up, like this tiny Mediterranean gecko.

A student of Emma's brought it to her, and since I have a tiny colony of porch geckos living here at PFHQ, ... she brought it home to me.

Is he cute or what?

Emma also brought me not 1, not 2, but 3 baby flying squirrels. I don't know the story on these, except that another teacher passed them to Emma to pass to me to pass to the "Squirrel Lady" that I work with. We bought some pedialyte and milk replacer to get them through Friday night/Saturday morning, until we could pass them off to Squirrel Lady.

These 3 are older than little "Sharky" from a few weeks ago, so I don't know if "Squirrel Lady", will rehab them or if she will pass them on to "Flying Squirrel Lady" to rehab.

These 2 dedicated squirrel rehabbers have real names of course, I mean, I think they do.
They must.

Bear was not thrilled about being banished from the bedroom while the 3 flying squirrels were fed Friday night, but he tolerated his exile very well.

This is a recent photo of little "Sharky", the flying squirrel waif from a few weeks ago. Squirrel Lady forwarded an email to me that included this picture and the news that Sharky is doing great and is now 14 grams. He did have a turn for the worst at one point, but Flying Squirrel Lady pulled him through it.

Ya gotta love squirrel ladies ... and wildlife rehabbers in general.

It truly is a labor of love that requires lost personal time, spending personal funds, occasional heartbreak ...

... and success means saying goodbye to something you cherish.

Baby Flying Squirrel Update

If you remember, just a few posts back, we had a little baby flying squirrel that needed some TLC rehabilitation after it became an orphan.
You may also remember that the "Squirrel Lady" out here at Cedar Key took it upon herself to get this baby to the "Flying Squirrel Lady" who had more experience with the tiny flying clan.

A recent email from the "Flying Squirrel Lady" included these photos and the news that little "Sharky" was doing very well.

... Just a little good news on your Wednesday.


(Oh, and ladies ... especially lady Gator fans ... there's a baby squirrel in the photos.)

Baby Flying Squirrel



A friend's pet cat decimated this baby flying squirrel's family and then brought this tiny baby into the house. Luckily, the friend intervened and rescued the tiny squirreling before any obvious damage was done.
Sigh ... as if I needed one more reason to dislike the domestic cat.


Anyway, Ms.Sara N. Dippity was looking out for this squirrel, because another friend of mine just happens to be a certified squirrel rehabilitation specialist with a passion for all things squirrelly.

And, I happen to work with the "Squirrel Woman", so the little flyer was transferred into the best hands possible today at school.

She said he's dehydrated and the youngest she has ever dealt with, but she will do her best.

I know she will, and that's good enough for me, whatever the final outcome.

Barking Tree Frog Tadpole Rescue

The fruit of the Frogapalooza evening down at the pond two weeks ago.

Unfortunately, the pond did not get the message about holding water until the tadpoles metamorphosed into tiny froglings.

In the last week, it has shrunk to two puddles of only a few inches in depth.
The water sits above a gooshy black organic ooze layer.

Warm water holds less oxygen than cool water and these shrinking puddles are loaded with thousands of tadpoles.

It's a recipe for a ca-tad-strophy.

Historically, this pipe channeled water from my gutters to the pond.

I took the gutters off last summer, but the pipe system I installed is still there.
This morning I hooked a hose into the system back at the house and sent water flowing down to the pond.

After the water was flowing, I scraped a shallow channel to direct water from the pipe to the tadpole puddles.

I also scraped a shallow canal to reconnect the two puddles.

As the cool, 72 degree well water entered the puddles, the tadpoles gravitated toward it and clumped up at the inlets.

It is raining in the area now, the drought is over, but the rain has skipped PFHQ for a week or so and the heat of summer was threatening to dry up these puddles. It took me about 15 minutes to scrape the "stream bed" and turn back the clock on these puddles.

Amphibians need every little hand up we can give them, not just here, but around the planet.

All I have to do is monitor the situation now and run a little water when the puddles shrink too much.

Most tadpoles metamorphose pretty quickly, so these guys just might make it.

I made a little video for you so you could see the whole operation in motion.

Florida Frog Fandango UPDATED (that means corrected.. ahem)

I don't usually start off or end with "bad" photos here at Pure Florida.

Actually, I try to keep them out of the middle too, but this post includes two technically bad shots that are simply to give some idea of the frognacious night we had here at PFHQ recently.

So, photo number one below is dark, far from the subjects, fuzzy,and there are rain drops on my lens,  but it does hint at the Anuramazing scene down at the "pond" Sunday night.

Photo number 5, later in this post, has the same flaws, but serves the same purpose.

If you click and enlarge it, you can have some fun seeking out frogs on the shore, in the water, and in the willows.

Look for white eyes ...

...sometimes only one white eye ...

... frogs wink.

 We're here! We're here!

 I'm calling these green tree frogs, even though the spots threw me at first, since most of the green tree frogs on my window panes at night are uniformly green. The UF guide mentioned golden spots on the back though, and my audio sounds like their green frog audio online ... so, that's my story and I am sticking to it like a tree frog on a window.

... Until convinced otherwise ....

Which happened almost immediately of course. This just validates the teacher proverb about, "Your first guess is probably the correct one."
Before publishing I went back and forth between barking and green treefrog for the ID. These frogs looked a lot stouter than my svelte greens on the window screens, but they were all puffed up and the singing sounded mostly like greens to my ears and barkers can be green while greens can be spotted.

So I went with an unconfident green diagnosis, knowing that Swampy and others would come to my rescue just like Doug does when I post a bug that I have not identified correctly.

Mistakes like this come from creating posts on your lunch hour ... 

(I writing interim biology assessments for the county this week).

... and hitting PUBLISH POST without too much fact checking.

Sorry about that, Chief.

 I walked down to the pond in total darkness and in a light rain with my spotlight turned off.

 The sound was all encompassing, you could hear it so well inside the house a hundred feet upslope that my wife thought the windows in the bedroom were open.

They were not.

Checkout the sound wave distortion in the pond surface surrounding Mr. Bubblethroat in the picture above.

The video below is mostly an audio experience, so here are a few tips.

1. First, turn the volume all the way up on your computer ... as if you were going to listen to Sweet Home Alabama.
2. Expect nothing but darkness and beautiful frog song for the first bit of the video. I started filming without light to capture their uninterrupted song as I walked through the woods. Sometimes they stop or slow down when you turn on a light and I wanted to record them as they were.
3. There are moments when the camera struggles (or was it me) to focus in the dim light of my dying spotlight, so hang in there and don't give up during those moments.

Gopher Mowpher? No Sir!

Mrs. FC was mowing around the house and garden area last week, when she stopped suddenly and called me over.

I was cutting brush along a fence line with my new, uber sweet kukri machete when I heard the mower stop and her call to "Come Quick!"

My first thought was, "Oh, she must have another carnivorous katydid up her pants ... what are the odds of two in a week?"

(WHAT? ... I didn't tell you about the carnivorous katydid?  One morning her truck would not start, so we had the hood up and jumper cables connecting it to my JEEP. While we leaned on the truck and peered at the engine the way people do in that situation, she began to hop around clutching the leg of her nursing scrubs, while shouting, "Take my pants off! Take my pants off!"

It was pretty funny (and unexpected) so I guess I must have been standing there in shocked amazement, because she took matters in to her own hands and flipped her waistband down long just enough for a big brown carnivorous katydid to hop out.

This was one of those times when it's especially good that we live way out in the country without neighbors. 

 Her truck never started by the way, and she headed off to work in my JEEP with a pretty unusual start to her day.)

On this day, it was not another katydid attack, but rather a young gopher tortoise who happened to be directly in the path of the mower when she spotted it.

WHEW! 

That was close.

Good job, Mrs. FC.

This guy has no concept of how lucky he is.

First he lives here, where we love his company and even manage parts of the property just for his benefit.

Second, we don't mow very often so the chances of a bad blade encounter are small to start with. In fact, due to the horrible drought which broke last week (after I wrote about it), we have mowed exactly two times this year.

Third, Mrs. FC happened to be paying close attention as she mowed.

This little guy might be last year's tiny yellow gopher I posted about at the time.

He's too big and past that hatchling yellow stage to be the motorcycle rescued gopher from a month or so ago.

Because it was nearby, I placed him in the runway to G-5's (Gopher #5) burrow, expecting him to scramble into the safety of the cool darkness.

He did not.

So I nudged him gently.

Unfortunately, due to the extreme slope of G-5's burrow entrance, when I nudged him he tumbled out of sight into the dark tunnel.

ARRRRGHHHHH!

What if he was in there on his back?

Sometimes they can right themselves, but sometimes they can not and it is a slow death if they can not get back upright.

I peered into the darkness, but could not see him.

DANG IT!

I dashed back into the house, grabbed the bazillion candlepower boat spotlight and returned.

At the top of the burrow, I put myself in a prone position so I was leaning upside down over the burrow entrance.

When the very powerful spotlight fired up, there was the little gopher, right side up crawling towards me.

I think I may name this one LUCKY if he decides to stick around PFHQ.



Summer Owls

Friday's mid-day, steaming hot walk with Bear was surprisingly productive in a critter/bird sort of way. I had my camera with me, but we move a lot when Bear and I "walk" so pictures are hard to get. Even so, we spooked all manner of beasts.
I  decided to head back to the house after practically tripping over a young indigo snake while walking Bear and missing the two swallow-tail kites that hovered over the house.  I turned Bear back through the shady palm hammock, intending to drop him off in the airconditioned comfort of PFHQ, while I took a slower quieter walk around for pics.

As soon as we stepped under the cool palm and oak canopy of the glade, an owl swooped overhead and landed on a well lit branch.

Maybe if I ran Bear back to the house, he would still be there for a picture.
We ran.

I returned.


The owl was gone.

I looked around, scanned the trees, but no sign of him.
I am used to this, so no big deal ... I will just go poke around the palmettos in case that indigo did not travel far.

At the palmetto clump, I looked up and ...

There he was!
Plus, he wasn't alone.

Sweet.

With my PFHQ barred owls, I find I can get really close to them if I avert my eyes and ooooze over slowly towards their perch.

Often, I can get directly beneath them and this was one of those days.



I love owl expressions.

"How DARE you?"  always comes to mind.




There is a video of these two, but it doesn't contain a whole lot more movement than this photo...

... just a lot of staring, glaring, and panting in the cicadacacaphonic heat.



Coons, Bears, and Hogs

This Gulf Frittillary cocCOON is attached to the underside of a garden hose where it leaves the faucet. It is a pretty radical looking coccoon to start with, but what really lepidopterates my mind is the fact that just a few hours earlier, it was a caterpillar hanging there.
In the morning walk with Bear, I spotted a faded orange GF caterpillar hanging from that spot puparing to change to a new phase in it's career.
I didn't have my camera ... (remember, I was attached to Bear by a leash) so I missed that shot.

Speaking of BEARS, our Bear got a new toy last week. It's an inhairitance from a fine dog who owned a best buddy of Junior. That pup is gone now, but his toy lives on by tormenting Bear relentlessly.
There is an inner ball that rotates in the larger outer ball and that inner ball has slots for inserting doggy treats. As you roll it a treat occasionally drops out.
Bear rolls it a lot.

It's noisy and challenging and Bear loves it.

The HOG plums are ripening and falling.
 I am especially proud of these little ripened ovaries as I planted their momma tree from a seed. Forced by competition with a black cherry tree (that I also planted from seed), she has grown uncharacteristically tall and straight. I think her DBH must be a good 5-6 inches now.

I have been collecting her fruits for the seeds this year. I want to start them and then plant them as a hedgerow along my southern boundary. It's mostly woods on the adjoining property, but the occasional occupants did some recent clearing and it makes me grouchy to see it.
Plus, these are great native wildlife plants with...
 ... plum purty flowers in the spring.

Flippin' Out



Don'cha hate mornings like this?



"Hey, watch out for turtles on your way in. It's like a turtle migration this morning."
She called after only a few minutes on the road, I was still walking Bear and had not left yet.
Sweet!
I was hoping for lots of turtle shots on the way in to work after getting that phone call. It has been all work and no play this week and I was short of fresh photos for PF.
Plus it had rained nicely last night ... FINALLY ...and I figured the critters would be on the move this morning.

As luck would have it, all I found in 20 miles was this poor musk turtle, upended and waiting helplessly for the first predator or big truck to come along.

I was in the other lane when I saw him, but there's not much traffic on this piney-woods road, so it wasn't a big deal to wheel the JEEP around and check him out.

I was dreading a cracked or mushed shell, but he seemed fine.




I suppose he was just tapped by a spinning wheel and sent spinning earlier that morning.

He was frisky and snappy, all good signs to me.
I left him in a roadside ditch with instructions to avoid the asphalt in the future.

This is the second turtle conference I have had this week.

A few days ago, a gopher tortoise was at the road edge, and just about halfway on to the asphalt. It was in the opposing lane on a quiet two-lane road so I pulled the JEEP over until I was in front of the gopher.

I pointed a finger out the open window of the JEEP and said, "NO!" while shaking my hand the way you do at toddler (or a dog named Bear) who is reaching for something dangerous.

The gopher looked up at me, hissed, and turned around towards its burrow high on the road bank.

I drove on.

Mission accomplished.

The parental finger wag ...
I still got it, baby.



Dragonfly Dry

I have 3 artificial water bodies in or next to my garden and blueberry patch this year. Each contains minnows, tadpoles, duckweed, iris, and a host of volunteer critters.
We are currently in an intense drought situation. High temperatures, steady breezes and no rain have all combined to dry up most nearby natural water sources.
Even my "big" earthen pond  at the front of PFHQ is once again a shallow puddle, crowded with minnows and tadpoles who aren't quite sure what to do next.

It is heron heaven, shallow, and jam packed with possibilities.

I am running ark missions from the real pond puddle to my FC ponds, but I will not be able to rescue everybody.

I think all of this dryness has shifted the dragonflies to my little mini ponds for their reproductive shenannigans.

I don't recall seeing so many in the garden area before.

.



They are perched on the iris, the nearby tomato plants, and even the blueberry bushes.
Maybe they are why I haven't had any insect damage to my tomatoes this season.

Now if I could just teach them to chase blueberry stealing cardinals away from my blueberry crop.

Yesterday evening I was deep in the blueberries, picking, and all of the sudden a host of cardinals, chickadees, and titmice arrived.

Hungry.

Boy were they surprised to see me.






UPDATE:  It is raining.

Suwannasaurus Rex

This little 6 footer was sunning just to the right of the Manatee Springs junction with the Suwannee River last weekend. A hundred yards away upstream along the spring run, dozens of people were happily splashing and swimming in the main spring.
The gator was enjoying the quiet solitude and sun in a gooshier, wilder area where swimmers do not go, but there is no physical barrier to prevent him from visiting the spring boil.

I was after sturgeon photos in my little sit on top fishing kayak, so I paddled past the sunning gator and across the river to where the sturgeon action was strongest. As I drifted along the bank with the current, I came across a much larger gator.
Much larger.



This one was stretched out in the water, with most of his body just beneath the surface. The Suwannee is tea colored, but clear in this area and I could see her bulk in its entirety.
I'm a fisherman, so I must exercise some restraint in my estimation to allow for fudgenicity of measurement.
My self-corrected conservative estimate is 8 feet.

What was so impressive and cautionary about this one, besides a respectable girth, is the fact that it stared me down and held its floating position while I drifted closer and closer.

In fact, when it never changed position or ducked under, I changed my course to give it even more space.

Perhaps a mound of rotting vegetation containing oval gator treasures sat in the swamp behind it ... incubating the next generation.

Whatever the reason, there was an air of territoriality in the gator's attitude and I did not care to challenge that while appearing to be a small creature atop an oddly shaped log.

You get my drift?



Gopher Urine and Motorcycles

I am pretty sure that I own the only motorcycle in the state of Florida that has had a gopher urinate on the seat.
It's a long story.
Well, no ... , it's actually a short story, but I can probably make it long if I try.

It all began at a 4-Way Stop  in the middle of 4 peanut fields being worked by big tractors.
I was heading north on Raptor Red, just gunkholing and looking for whatever might come my way.

I had assumed I would get more than 3 miles from the house before something interesting did actually come my way.

I was wrong.

I am used to this.

As I reigned in Raptor Red and pulled to a stop at the 4 way intersection, a bit of movement in the road caught my eye.

This tiny guy was crossing the two lane blacktop. He was leaving a field with one big tractor chewing up the ground and heading to the next field where another tractor was working the peanut crop.
Now here was a problem, ... a dilemma if you will.

The infant gopher was heading out of one dangerous place, across a dangerous road, to another dangerous place.
He was also a protected species.

A pick-up was approaching the intersection.
It was time to act.

I leaned over from my perch upon Raptor Red and scooped the baby gopher up and into my windbreaker pocket.
Not a perfect carrier, but I was still close to home and the gopher colony back at PFHQ.
Once I got turned around, I could ride one handed and keep one hand on the jacket pocket.

I swung the bike out of the intersection and headed back home.

In the rearview mirror, I saw the truck reach the intersection. It seemed to pause longer than needed at an empty 4-Way stop in the country.

The driver pointed out something in the road to his passenger.

I felt my pocket.

Empty.


I did a U turn and headed back to the 4-Way.

The truck drove on.

When I pulled up to the 4-Way stop, the little gopher lay on his back,legs kicking, seemingly none the worse for wear after his short fall from Raptor Red.

I thought about the truck as I scooped him up yet again.

What kind of people stop, look at an upside down tortoise baby in the road, and then go on without at least righting it or moving it to the side.

I pondered this as I drove home, one hand on the throttle, one hand on the tiny gopher wiggling in my jacket pocket.

I may have rolled through a few stop signs due to my one-handedness.

Back at PFHQ, home to at least 7 wild and free gophers, I warned the new guy about the neighbors cats who trespass here when Bear is inside. My advice was to share G-5's gopher burrow and not stray too far from the entrance.
He seemed to listen.

I showed him the entrance and he took it from there.
I hope to see him again and if he decides to stay and make his own burrow, it looks like he will be G-8.

What?
Oh, the gopher urine. Yes, well after releasing him safely, I returned to Raptor Red to head out once again.

One of the dimples in the leather seat was filled with liquid ... the one just below where my jacket pocket would be.

I reached into the pocket.

It was soaked.

As were my jeans beneath it.

Oh well, who could blame the little guy.

It was quite a morning for him.

Sturgeon Stampede

A peaceful Suwannee River scene. Did you notice the white explosion off to the right of the picture?
Compare it to the 30 foot houseboat to the left.

That is the splash of a  Gulf Sturgeon slamming the surface of the river after a leap out of the water.

In the picture above, a boat zips along as a sturgeon leaps just off the starboard bow.
The sturgeon return to the Suwannee to spawn in the spring and summer as they have done for millions of years. Part of this ancient ritual is jumping.
Don't ask me why they jump ... it should be clear.
It's mating season, remember?
They jump because they are happy.

It's a really good idea to slow down this time of year as you cruise the river. Already, there has been a boat-sturgeon collision with injuries.

Rentry.

Fosbury Flop.

When I first arrived at Manatee Springs on Sunday morning, I was on my motorcycle. I walked out the boardwalk to the river to see if the sturgeon were there and leaping. Not only were they there, but they were jumping like a bunch of mullet on steroids.
It was hard to get close for a photo since they were mostly jumping between the river center and the opposite bank.
So ... I zipped back home and switched the bike for the JEEP, which allowed me to launch my kayak in the Manatee Springs run and paddle across the Suwannee to where the action was.

That allowed me to get in the thick of things, but photographing these babies is a real challenge since you don't really know the point at which they will suddenly erupt from the tea colored water.

I would partially zoom in on an area and wait. If I was pointing in front, they would erupt behind me.
If I swung left, they would jump just a little to the right.
Maddening.
The digital delay of my beloved, but 5 year old Sony was a little maddening also.
I have a lot of splash only shots ... probably 5 of those for every shot shown here.

I did SEE beautiful photographs of sleek sturgeon in mid-leap with backlit gems of water spraying all around.
Just didn't capture those.

I think even these close cropped less than perfect shots can give you a feel for sturgeon spectacularity though.
It really is something to see ... and hear as these huge fish belly wop back into the river after a vertical flight of 6 feet.

I plan to return for more attempts, so maybe I can get that one shot that got away.

This shot is soft focus, but it does show a sturgeon at the peak of his leap.
These fish are so AWESOME!

Go see for yourself.
Prepare to be sturgeonated.