Invaders

While painting in a more urban location in Naples (the Naples Zoo entry), I was confronted by a Muscovy duck. This invasive animal is often thought to be a native critter by visitors. This duck was very tame and one child petted as if it were a dog. The duck also frightened one little girl and her mother. They were petrified at this large bird who seemed oblivious to their attempts to shoo it away.
I intervened. The duck had already pestered me, but I ignored him. Once I intervened he seemed to think of me as a buddy and continued just to hang out.

I am not fond of Muscovys or any invasive exotic plant or animal because of the impact on indigenous flora and fauna. This duck really had personality. I would never ever harm this type of critter, but unless more people are aware of the harm these invasive species do by displacing other native animals, more will proliferate. They reproduce quite rapidly. For more on invasive plants and animals in this region check out this website: http://nis.gsmfc.org/nis_alphabetic_list.php

Nature and painting

I have been busy combining my interests in natural history and painting via a painting workshop taking in three key habitats in this area:

Upland, Coastal and Wetland systems provide an experience beyond painting technique.

More later with pictures (of course).

Mystery Solved

The scat found turns out to be from coyotes! Yes, we have coyotes in SW Florida. One columnist for the Collier Citizen newspaper; Mark Strain, wrote about trapping two of them humanely and then releasing them. He lives not too far from us. Then, one day when both my husband and I came home after dark seperately, we both saw at least one of these really beautiful animals in our headlights. The one critter I spotted, walked right in front of my car and the headlights illuminated the entire animal. There was no doubt about what I had just seen.

Nice to have the mystery solved. Coyotes are not native to Florida. Dr. Martin Main, a noted wildlife researcher with the University of Florida is involved with learning more about this animal in Florida. For more information click this link: South Florida Coyote Study

Clue number two

Different critter or is this a variation in diet?

Evidence: specimen one

Sometimes when critters visit you may not get to see them, but they often leave evidence of their visit: scat. Trying to figure out what animal left the evidence is an area of study for some.

Guidebooks help.

This is the first clue in a mystery:

what critter visited our property recently?

Looks like this creature ate some berries! We have raccoons, grey squirrels, big cypress fox squirrels, skunk, oppossum and bear known to be in our part of Collier County. Could this scat be from one of them?

Baby in a tree

Perhaps it is the change in air pressure as a tropical storm approaches, but the critters who live in our neighborhood are busier than usual looking for food and shelter. Yesterday, I was out in the yard because blue jays were making a huge noise. I went out to see if a feral cat was in the yard. Instead, the jays were complaining about a baby. I grabbed my camera and took a couple shots under the attack of hungry mosquitos and using a pretty long lens.
This baby was taking a nap. Don't know where his/her mama was or if there were any brothers or sisters around, but I am keeping the camera handy should I be able to get more pictures without getting too close!

Alligators and humans

I do have some great pictures of alligators taken with a long lens. This post, however is about CBS Early Show. I just watched a segment done by their weatherman in Baton Rouge, LA. It appeared to be broadcast from some type of tourist trap where they feed captive alligators chicken to amuse the visitors. Little natural history education was taking place...instead they showed this loud fellow throwing chicken pieces into the open mouths of the gators. I felt this was a terrible example to set for viewers, so I wrote to WINK-TV management and asked them to contact the key executives and producers by forwarding my email with my thoughts about how outrageously irresponsible the network was in showing this segment. I suggested they send along all the news story footage in recent years about alligator attacks (which include multiple human deaths.) Feeding alligators is not only illegal in Florida, it can be life threatening. It puts other humans at risk as well as the alligator and further disrupts nature.

The entire segment made feeding these animals seem like a "fun" thing to do.

I can only hope CBS and the Early Show get the message.

Butterfly orchid rescue

We are blessed or should I say were blessed with a Florida native orchid called a butterfly orchid in our yard. I discovered the plant one day when outside waiting for the dog to get on with the morning ritual. Every June it bloomed and I would photograph it. I had to use a ladder to get close. Hurricane Wilma did beat the orchid up a lot, so I wasn't surprised that it didn't bloom this June. However, a week ago, during my almost daily check of the plant I noticed it was GONE!
Fortunately it wasn't really gone but it was in dire straits. I rescued it yesterday and hope to save it and put it back onto a pond cypress tree.
Here is the rescued orchid atop a section of a pine tree that crashed down from a previous storm It fell on top of the native and endangered bromeliads almost crushing them. You can see some of these plants as well.

What happened to March and April?

Time flies and this fellow is looking for some...flies that is.

His image was captured in a while back. I am just now getting to some of my nature images. Been super busy with painting. Check out my website which I just finished updating. You will find this cute little frog there also. I don't know what species this guy is, but I found him hiding in our lamp post by our driveway when we installed a new light fixture.
http://www.trudybentleyrech.com

Dot com status

Please visit my new website:http://www.trudybentleyrech.com/
I am looking forward to growing more professionally. I hope you will check out this new site often. I will be updating it at least weekly. For now, it may be daily in the fashion of Blogs!