SCENE TWO – SUMMER

A Tufted Family:

One highlight of summer is my back patio. It is the perfect setting for our backyard theater. We have two grills for cooking out, a table with an umbrella for shade, and many flowers. Sitting outside in the evenings is most relaxing. Many of the nesting birds have fledglings, leaving the nest by this time. Several bird species travel as flocks or families.

The tufted titmouse is among those birds that flock together. This little bird has the cutest gray crest atop its head. Its song is one of the sweetest sounds in the woods. I often see five or six tufted titmice flying back and forth from the tree line to the feeder, usually in the late afternoon and early evening. They are polite and take turns. The tufted titmouse is related to the chickadee and is relatively tame. At one point, I was watering the plant that hangs on the opposite side of the feeder, and one of them continued to feed while I was only a couple of feet away.
Learn about the Tufted Titmouse.

Chickadee-dee-dee:

One of my favorite birds to watch and listen to is the two species of chickadees that visit our feeder. These little birds are bursting with energy and social vocalizations. The Carolina chickadee is more prevalent in Florida. However, in recent years, the northern Black-Capped chickadee took up residence in central Florida.

Our backyard patio is perfect for watching the chickadees and their voracious appetites. I can sit for an hour in the evenings and watch each chickadee sit at the feeder picking out seeds, then fly back to the tree line. Then, the next one will take its turn. They continue this feeding behavior for close to an hour, back and forth, taking turns one by one.

I can often hear their high-pitched song in the neighboring woods. However, it’s hard to say whether I hear the Black-Capped or the Carolina Chickadee since they can learn each other’s unique melody. This makes it hard for bird watchers to identify them solely on their song unless seen for proper identification.
Learn about the Carolina Chickadee.

Sandhill Cranes:

Once again, the lake across the street offers a home and feeding ground for another bird species. I can’t remember a time that we didn’t see our resident family of Sandhill cranes. The lake is home to at least one mating pair. They mate and nest every year in the marsh that surrounds the lake.

It isn’t hard to recognize when the local pair will mate and incubate eggs. It is a joy to see them entertain us with their mating dance. They bob their heads, lean forward, and flutter their wings. Usually, within six weeks, we see parents and young strolling along the side of the road or in the neighbor’s yard, feeding on bugs, grasses, and seeds.

Then, in late winter, we can hear their loud kar-r-r-r-o-o-o and rattling calls. Many pairs fly over our particular area, but we only know of one that nests near our lake.
Learn about the Sandhill Crane.

Surrounded by Ibises:

The white ibis is the most prevalent local wading bird to live in Florida year-round. Summer is our most active sighting of these beautiful and delicate birds. June starts our rainy season, and after each storm, groups of ibises wander through our front yard and along the drainage ditches. They often make their way to the deep trench along the road that buts up to our backyard. Ibises feed by probing for their food and sometimes by sight. Their food sources are frogs, bugs, crawfish, snails, and small fish. I suspect that they find an array of snails and frogs in our yard since plenty of them are available. I know this because if we forget to turn off the porch light at night, the walls and front door are covered with an army of tiny green frogs.
Learn more about the White Ibis.

Hide and Seek:

We often see two hawk species near my house—the Red-Shouldered Hawk and Cooper’s hawk. We also have the typical deluge of squirrels. I saw a young squirrel with a bobbed tail one day, and I appropriately named him Bob. One morning, I heard a commotion in our backyard. Our neighbor has a tall white fence that borders his yard, and we have a short reddish stained fence in ours that lines our neighbor’s fence. There is a small space between the fences. It turns out that poor Bob, the squirrel, was being chased and hunted by a hawk. I am sure that the red-shouldered hawk was hoping for a good meal, but Bob was clever and used the space between the fences to play hide and seek with Mr. Hawk. Bob was lucky! Mr. Hawk gave up and flew away, defeated.
Learn about the Red-shouldered Hawk.
Learn about the Cooper’s Hawk.

Gobble Gobble:

Yes. You read that correctly. We have a sub-species of wild turkeys in our area. Before we put up a fence in our backyard, we would have rafters of wild turkeys make their way through our back yard daily. One day, the entire rafter sat in the tree line and slept for hours. It was a fantastic sight. We are sad that we no longer see them in our yard, but we hear them in the woods and surrounding areas.
 Learn about Florida’s two subspecies of Turkeys.

Scene Three – Autumn will post next month.