Baby Gators

It seems to be baby gator season around here. Baby gators hang around their mothers for about 2 years. Most gators hatch in August. They have been found on the Willow Marsh Trail and in some of the ditches. Come check it out.

Art Arbor Festival

Art arbor is right around the corner. This Festival is put on the by the Friends of Boyd Hill Nature Preserve.

November 7th and 8th, 10 am - 5 pm

Bring the whole family for a weeekend full of fun.

Live music all day long

Food Court

Free Guided Tram Tours

Arts and Crafts

Wildlife Programs

Native and Butterfly Plants for sale

Green Stage

Children's Games

Kid's Crafts

Wildlife Station

Photography Contest Exhibit

or join us on Sunday November 8th at 9 am for the Inaugural RACCOON RUN a 5k run through Boyd Hill Nature Preserve. The one mile fun walk begins at 9:30 am.

Get all the details at www.artarborfestival.com

Coyote Sightings and Facts

Our resident coyotes have been seen more and more in the last few weeks. I believe that they are having a hard time finding enough food and subsequently they stay out later in the day to hunt. Normally we only see them at dawn and dusk. They are a corpuscular species, meaning that they hunt for food at these times of the day. Thanks to Al Wallace for the beautiful picture below. I don't know how he captures such wonderful pictures, but every time the crispness of his photos surprises me.



The City of St.Petersburg has some helpful facts about Coyotes on their website.
http://www.stpete.org/wildlife/florida_coyote.asp

The one in the picture above is actually running across the golf course located next to the preserve. The pictures was taken by one of the neighbors from his front yard.

Pinellas Country also has some great info on coyotes in this brochure. They eat just about anything, birds, insects, fruit, and small mammals. Because they are so adaptable, they are spreading throughout Pinellas County and will continue to call more places home in urban areas. Despite popular view they have been around here since the 1970's.

One guy even told me he had seen them dumpster diving in a church's dumpster. They are NOT dangerous. They are very shy creatures. Remember: If you feed coyotes they will lose their natural fear of humans. This means don't leave out trash or other food that would be easy for them to eat. Keep your pets indoors when not on a leash. Keep the wildlife wild!!

Some strange things are going on here

Yesterday, Candy, one of the rangers here, told me, "You need to come look at the butterfly garden. There are some weird flowers in there." I thought, "How funky can the flowers be?" Well, she was right. These are some really weird flowers. I have never seen a flower do this before, however some of the rangers are saying that they have seen it before.

The flowers are growing new stems and new flower heads out of the center of the black-eyed susans. These flowers were planted for their nectar. (Don't get me wrong - they're beautiful, but their value here is the nectar for the butterflies.) Usually the butterflies drink up the nectar and that is it. Here the center has sprouted, not one, but many new flowers inside the center. If anyone has heard or seen this phenomenon before... please let me know. I just can't believe this is normal!

Here you can plainly see the yellow petals of the primary flower. The secondary flowers are about to bloom out of the center.

While I was out looking at flowers, Candy showed me the caterpillars in another part of the garden. I counted 24 caterpillars in all. 6 of them were either in a chrysallis or were in position to go through the metamorphasis. They are some hungry little things, of all different sizes.

These were in position to form their chrysallises. I also so a female butterfly laying eggs.

Here is the picture of the butterfly.

I tried to get some pictures of the eggs but those things are really small. I'll try again soon and see if my camera will focus on something that small.

Summer by the animals

I love watching the seasons change. Even in FLorida where our weather doesn't change much (compared to the northern states) there are great indicators that Summer is here. Much of what I have noticed lately is the insects. The cicadas are chirping all night long, the horseflies and deerflies are out and this Lubber Grasshopper was spotted in our butterfly garden. These guys multiply by what seems like enormous numbers. The juveniles are black with either an orange or yellow strip down the middle of the back. When they morph into the adults the coloring is completely different. Despite their bright colors, they can be very hard to find amongst the vegetation out here.
The next couple shots are of a Golden Orb Weaver. Its a scary looking spider to most people, but perfectly harmless. That doesn't mean that you should pick them up. They will bite if they don't like the situation they are in. If you look closely at the photo you can see why they are called Golden Orb Weavers.... they weave golden strands into their webs. If the sun catches it just right then they light up like a laser light show.

This is the underside pictured above and the top of the spider pictured below.

One of our loyal photographers shot this photo last weekend of a coyote pup. There have been lots of sightings of these little guys as of late. There are about 6 - 8 of them, it's hard to tell because they move so fast. The adults have been seen here for about the past year, but they roam around alot and we don't see them everyday. As with all the wildlife, the sightings are varied in location and frequency. We don't have any pictures of the adults.... just this one of a beautiful pup... kit... cub. I'm not sure what they are called when they are young. Does anybody know what they are called?

Next blog post will be about the plants of summer. They are in full bloom out there. Come visit the flowers and the insects when you can, but come by in the morning.... it's getting really hot out there!