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Sep 12

Nature of Things: Birds adapt to urban lifestyle as natural habitat shrinks – The Ledger

Diets that Work Comments Off on Nature of Things: Birds adapt to urban lifestyle as natural habitat shrinks – The Ledger

Tom Palmer| Special to The Ledger

Add the diets of some birds to list of impacts from Floridas population growth, as more of the countryside gives way to new subdivisions.

It seems some wood storks in South Florida have been adapting toliving near urban areas by shifting from a diet that historically consisted of fish to whatever they can scrounge among human food leftovers or offerings, a group of Florida Atlantic University researchers found during a two-year study.

The study compared the diets and reproductive success of storks that nested near urban areas with those that nested in more natural areas deeper in the Everglades.

The results were that the urban birds were eating more regularly even if their diet and the food they brought back to their nests sometimes consisted of hot dogs, waffles and other human-related foods. As a result, they were producing more young.

Wood storks in more natural areas are at the mercy of water levels that sometimes make it difficult to efficiently forage because the fish are too spread out in wet years. They didnt prosper or reproduce as well as the urban birds during the study period, the researchers reported.

When I was reading this, I was thinking about the pair of sandhill cranes I saw last year in a convenience store parking lot near the edge of the Green Swamp.

When I first began birdwatching more than 40 years ago, you had to travel into the countryside or to a state park to see sandhill cranes.

Now thata lot of the former countryside is covered with rooftops, the cranes have adapted by learning to forage near populated areas because, to be frank, there isnt any place left for them to look for food in many parts of Florida.

The downside of this is that I see more road-killed sandhill cranes than I once did.

Im not the only one who has noticed this.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissions Florida Wildlife Research Institute has been conductingresearch that involves fitting some cranes with colored leg bands or radio transmitters to get a better idea of their movements and their fate.

They are also accepting reports of sightings of either road-killed or banded sandhill cranes. To learn more about the program, go tohttps://tinyurl.com/y34o4res.

One more thing, keep in mind that it is illegal in Florida to feed sandhill cranes, and directly feeding wildlife is generally discouraged. Installing bird feeders is OK, though.

The main reason for this is that when wild animals directly associate people with food, they tend to lose their natural fear of humans and can become aggressive. There have been reports of cranes heavily damaging screened porches in search of expected food.

Besides birds can figure out how to find food, sometimes in unexpected ways.

I remember when some of were on a birdwatching trip in South Florida many years ago and found it entertaining to watch boat-tailed grackles pluckingdragonflies and other insects from the grilles of parked diesel rigs.

Another bird species that has become a common sight in urban areas is the white ibis.

White ibises were once proposed by state wildlife officials as a species of special concern until some legislators threatened to cut the agencys budget.

Now I see small flocksforaging in front yards all over my neighborhood in a fairly urban area of the county.

Like the cranes, they have fewer natural areas they can use, so they survive however they can. Their population is reportedly stable.

As I mentioned last week, the annual fall bird migration is well under way.

Some of the species that migrate through or to Florida are shorebirds.

If you see a flock of shorebirds at the beach, give them some space and do not do as some uneducated people do and run at them (or allow their children or pets to do so) and scatter them.

They have flown hundreds of miles and need all of their energy to survive the season until they return to their nesting grounds.

Observe any posted areas set up to protect bird colonies and urge others to comply.

This is especially important in Florida, where a combination of increased coastal development and increased population have combined to push wildlife including shorebirds out of their historic feeding and resting areas.

By all means watch birds, learn about them and enjoy seeing them, just do it from a respectful distance.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has launched a new website that provides a way to report gopher tortoise sightings anywhere in Florida to give state biologists more information on the location of tortoises and active burrows. The site also provides a way to report dead or injured gopher tortoises.

These animals occur in upland areas throughout the Florida peninsula. They are protected by state law/ Their burrows also provide refuges for a variety of other species of wildlife.

The site provides information on permitting information when gopher tortoises exist on proposed development sites to allow people to verify whether work in gopher tortoise habitat is properly permitted.

To check out the site, go to MyFWC.com/GopherTortoise.

Check out Tom Palmer's blog atwww.ancientislands.org/conservation.

See the rest here:
Nature of Things: Birds adapt to urban lifestyle as natural habitat shrinks - The Ledger

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