Florida Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum floridanus) - Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, Florida

The Florida Dry Prairie is a rather nondescript habitat.  It’s a big prairie of bluestem grasses and wiregrasses and palmettos.  In fact, it’s not even really all that dry.  At times it can be very wet, but its called a dry prairie simply because it is much drier than the wet prairies elsewhere in Florida.  So what is special about these prairies?  Well, they are home to sparrows, lots and lots of sparrows, but one of them is particularly unique.

These prairies are the wintering grounds for numerous species of sparrows but more importantly, they are the only breeding grounds for the endemic Florida Grasshopper Sparrow.  This tiny bird, a subspecies of the Grasshopper Sparrow, doesn’t migrate and spends its entire life in the dry prairies of south central Florida.  The population is small, with less than 1,000 birds estimated in a census in 1997 and a 2008 report showed that the birds are continuing to decline, quite rapidly at times.

Part of the problem is fire, a common theme here at Wanderer’s Apprentice recently.  When we talked about fire with respect to the scrub habitat, we were talking about burning cycles in the realm of 5-25 years.  For the Dry Prairie to be prime habitat for Florida Grasshopper Sparrows, it needs to burn on a 1-3 year cycle.  Even more important is when during the year the prairie burns. Take a look at the two panoramas below.

The above panorama shows a dominance of palmettos with short grass near the ground, while tall grasses dominate the panorama below. In fact, these two prairies are very similar and in fact only burned about 5 months apart.  They both have similar species compositions, but in the bottom panorama the prairie burned in May, during the growing season.  This fire stimulated the growth of the grasses and you see the result.  The top prairie was burned in December during a more dormant phase of the grasses so no growth was stimulated.

It is the bottom prairie that forms the ideal habitat for these sparrows.  The tall grass not only provides cover but provides an excellent food source for both breeding Florida Grasshopper Sparrows and the other wintering sparrows.  Also, as you can see, there are few trees and Florida Grasshopper Sparrows require essentially a total absence of trees, even a density of a single tree per acre can mean it is not habitat suited for these sparrows.  Frequent burning helps to burn back any tree that happens to germinate and start to grow.

So what else do Dry Prairies offer besides Florida Grasshopper Sparrows?  They are great places to see other species of birds including Burrowing Owls, Crested Caracaras, and White-tailed Kites.  Butterflies are quite common and the wildflower displays can be quite beautiful.  This particular prairie, located at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, is the largest protected parcel of Florida Dry Prairie left in the state and I highly recommend a visit, especially in spring.

As you can see here, Florida Scrub Jays like low scrub habitat with a mosaic of oaks and palmettos growing under five or six feet.  As the head ornithologist at Archbold said, “If you can’t see the horizon you aren’t in good habitat.”  Typically this short vegetation has patches of open white sand in spots where you will often find Scrub Jays foraging for fallen acorns and insects.

At first glance, wanting to live in a big wide open environment may not seem ideal.  As a bird, you are easily exposed to predators from above.  However, this is where Scrub Jays thrive, so let’s explore why.

If you watch the behavior of Florida Scrub Jays, you quickly realize they have evolved to thrive in open habitats with short stature vegetation. First off, they aren’t the most agile of fliers.  Sure, they get from point A to point B just fine, but up against an avian predator, they simply aren’t going to out maneuver a Sharp-shinned or Cooper’s Hawk, especially not in close quarters.  Scrub Jay defense depends on one thing, an early warning system.

When Florida Scrub Jays are foraging, there is always a single family member that sits at the highest point in the area, typically a dead snag, and keeps watch.  When a predator is sighted, he gives a call and then the entire family reacts.  The reaction, and the call for that matter, depends on whether it’s an avian or terrestrial predator.  In the case of an avian predator, all the birds will dive for cover and hide.  This only works for open habitat where the sentinel can see the bird coming from far enough away so he can hide too.

If a family of scrub jays lives in more marginal habitat where vegetation is higher and the sentinel can’t see as far, then the danger increases.  The sentinel can’t see potential predators until they are much closer, and his life becomes quite dangerous because he has to sound then alarm and then get to cover.  A closer predator means less time to hide and more chance of being the predator’s next meal.

For a habitat that burns on a rotation of somewhere between every few years and every quarter century, ideal habitat exists typically about 3-6 years after a burn.  So what about all that other habitat that hasn’t burned recently enough?  Is it devoid of scrub jays?  No, they are there and living just fine.  However, it’s likely that their mortality is a bit higher, their territories might be a bit bigger, and overall quality of life is likely lower than those birds able to hold and defend territories covering prime habitat.

This first panorama isn’t exactly the most exciting image as it is directly on top of a road, but I am including it because it is illustrative.  At this intersection, you can clearly see three different sections of scrub at different stages of fire succession.  Looking straight ahead when the image loads, you’ve got a recent fire, less than a year ago.  If you pan to the right and cross the first road, you see a taller patch of scrub.  This patch burned about 8 years ago.  Continuing to the right, you will cross another road and see an even taller patch that hasn’t burned for at least 25 years.  Let’s take a closer look at each of these forests…

As you can see from this recent burn, the scrub is set to regenerate very quickly.  Already, the Scrub and Saw Palmettos are have new fronds out and are nice and green.  You can also see that there is still a fair amount of dead grass in the vicinity that hasn’t burned.  This shows that when these fires come through, they don’t burn everything but rather burn in a patchy pattern, leaving some trees and plants untouched.  Many plants will use fire for seed dispersal and will germinate soon after a fire.

This patch of scrub was burnt about 8 years ago in 2002 or 2003.  It isn’t the ideal habitat for Florida Scrub Jays, but there are families that use this patch of scrub.  However, the oaks are much taller than what is ideal for jays.   At just over head height, it makes it difficult for jays to efficiently scout for predators and are in greater danger than they would be in a habitat of shorter stature.

This final patch of scrub is incredibly dense.  This panorama was taken about 15 feet off the road but it took me about 20 minutes to simply get into position due to the dense oaks and palmettos. The tall oaks make it dangerous for Scrub Jays to live in this habitat due to the threat of predators and difficulty in patrolling the territory borders and chasing away other intruding families.  Due to the dense vegetation and huge amount of available fuel, when this patch burns next it will likely burn extremely hot, leaving little vegetation untouched.

So what is the ideal habitat for the Florida Scrub Jay?  Well, I’ll show you tomorrow…

I spent a couple days at the Archbold Biological Station earlier this month working on a project focusing on the Florida Scrub Jay and its habitats.  As I have previously written, this is the location for Florida Scrub Jay research and a prime location for the beautiful scrub habitat that these birds call home.

Archbold sits on a much larger geological formation known as the Lake Wales Ridge.  This ridge is comprised of remnant sand dunes from a time when Florida was nearly covered by oceans.  Now, it is called a ridge but don’t let that fool you.  We are talking about elevation changes of a few feet, but these small differences make a huge difference.

This area doesn’t get any less rain then the rest of the state, but the scrub here is xeric, meaning it is extremely dry.  What makes the region so incredible is that the soil is essentially about 200 feet of pure white sand; after all, it was once a beach.  It is this soil that creates such a dry environment, as it simply doesn’t hold water, but instead drains extremely rapidly.

The plants and animals found in these environments are often quite unique and there are a large number of endemic plants that can be found throughout the various microhabitats found on the Lake Wales Ridge.  For the purposes of my visit, I focused on the scrub habitat as it is the prime habitat for the Florida Scrub Jay and over the next few days, I’ll be sharing with you a series of panoramas to illustrate some of the fascinating natural history of this environment and its inhabitants.

After only a few weeks of this series, I have chosen to put things on hold for a bit.  I made the decision based on a number of factors I’d like to take a few minutes to explore.  First, I believe that this series will be extremely valuable and become a great resource, but at this point, I don’t feel like I am doing the various habitats justice.  My original plan was to include photographs, text, and even audio to help better describe the habitat.  As I am new to this region, and new to many of these habitats, I don’t have the photographic library or even the natural history knowledge I would like to be able to really describe these habitats.  By postponing this series for a few months, I will be able to complete a lot of research as well as further expand my photograph library to be able to better accommodate this series.

Another reason I have decided to stop this series is all about timing.  I started the series in late fall, early winter and that makes tree and plant identification extremely difficult.  Not only am I struggling in the field, but you don’t get the full impact of the habitat in the panoramas when nearly everything is leafless.  Furthermore, while habitat is extremely important to wintering birds, it’s the breeding birds that are often even more specific about their habitat selection.  I believe that this is where the strength of the series lies and I know it will be better situated to begin in the Spring and Summer with supplementary posts in Fall and Winter, rather than starting in Winter.

So, this will be the last Interactive Habitat post for 2009.  I will start once again sometime in the near year.  I would like to start in February, when I return to New York after my time in Florida.  I will be shooting extensively in south Florida and will be doing a lot of panoramas so I can start covering those habitats until spring arrives here.  Thanks for understanding and I hope to return with an incredible series early next year.

Spruce trees are found in the northern latitudes around the world.  My experience is that these forests are dark and dense with very little understory.  A few ferns and other ground cover can be found scattered across the ground around the massive trunks, but the dense crowns of these large spruce trees block out the sun, preventing saplings and other trees from growing.

This particular series was taken in a local state forest where the trees had obviously been planted years ago.  The perfect lines of trees gave the forest a plantation feel, but the trees had grown quite large and if it wasn’t for the perfect lines, I wouldn’t have known that they were planted.  I don’t know if these trees were planted for the timber industry or to create habitat, but they appear to have created a great parcel of habitat for many species.

This habitat is great for some of the northern finches that venture south in the winter to find good cone crops.  Ruffed Grouse also make their home here in the spruce forest.  When spring arrives, Dark-eyed Juncos and possibly Mourning Warblers will be found nesting in this dense and dark forest.  I look forward to returning later this winter in search of finches as well as in the spring to photograph the breeding songbirds.

A spruce bog is a habitat that I am totally unfamiliar with so as of now, I don’t have a whole lot of information.  It is a really amazing habitat and hosts a huge diversity of wildlife as they typically are somewhat small and create a lot of edge effect, where two habitats come together.  In late fall and winter, bird life is relatively quiet.  However, just this morning I saw Ruffed Grouse, American Crow, Blue Jays, Black-capped Chickadees, and more.  Early in the year I had huge flocks of Song and Swamp Sparrows and other fall migrants including several Ash-throated Flycatchers.  Mallards and Wood Ducks as well as Canada Geese call this marsh home as well.  Spring and summer host numerous breeding warblers and other songbirds and I will bring you more on that in the spring.

I have also seen other wildlife including Muskrat and signs of Beavers.  Red and Grey Squirrels and Eastern Chipmunks are common and I can only imagine what other wildlife comes to drink.  Earlier in the fall, before the temperatures dropped, frogs were numerous but I was unable to get a good look and identify them to species.  Again, lots more to come in the spring.

Kalkadoon Grasswren - Mt. Isa, Queensland, Australia

This week will see the launch of a new weekly series, Interactive Habitats.  One of the greatest skills for a birder is the ability to recognize a specific habitat and then know immediately what birds and other animals are likely to be found there.  This sounds fairly simple but it can be deceptively difficult if you don’t have a decent working knowledge of botany.  I think I may have a solution…

When I spent a year traveling and photographing birds across Australia, I kept running into this exact problem.  One particular group of birds, the Grasswrens, is notoriously difficult birds to find and each species likes a very specific habitat.  They tend to live in remote and inhospitable parts of the country and they are fairly secretive birds preferring to run rather than fly.

I set out to see and hopefully photograph every single species of Grasswren in Australia.  Most of them are found in remote interior sections of the outback so just getting there was difficult.  Once I arrived, I had descriptions like “find the growing lignum” or “look for scattered spinifex in flat areas” or “check the dense spinifex on rocky hillsides.”  Now, I am not a botanist and when I arrived in Australia, I had zero knowledge of Australian flora, which is entirely different than the plants of North America.  I had no idea what lignum looked like alive or dead much less what spinifex.  Spinifex it turns out looks like sea urchins the size of a bushel basket with needle sharp spines that go through any clothing, including jeans.

Spinifex covered slope - Purnululu National Park, Western Australia, Australia

As I traveled and researched each of these birds, I realized that I wasn’t the only person clueless on many of these habitats.  There were many Australians that had not spent much time in the interior that didn’t know what to look for either.  I imagine that this is also true of many of us in the United States.  We live in a huge country and someone living in the east might be very familiar with what a coastal tidal marsh looks like but clueless on what a sagebrush plain looks like.  How can you seek out and study birds if you don’t know where the are supposed to live?  It’s like trying to find a friend’s house with turn by turn directions but you don’t know where to get off the highway and into his neighborhood.  It turns into guesswork and its easy to waste enormous amounts of time.

Now that I have moved to New York, I am once again in a new area without a basic knowledge of the local flora and habitats.  It isn’t anywhere near as foreign as Australia, but it still is different.  In order to help facilitate habitat identification and exploration, I have decided to create a catalog of interactive panoramas of the various local habitats, and the habitats I visit while traveling.  The goal is to create a catalog of environments and habitats from around the world and become the source for understanding bird habitats in the United States and beyond.  This is just the beginning and as the project progresses into spring, I have a ton of ideas on how to expand the scope to create an unparalleled resource.

As mentioned, this will be a weekly series and I will be posting a new panorama every Friday.  Check in each Friday to experience a new panorama and description of the habitat and what makes it distinctive from others.  Today, I will start with a simple spruce bog in early winter.