Day 116: April 25th – Great southern whites

Sunny, high 70s, light south winds

       To be perfectly honest, today did not start out to be a quest for butterflies.  Once again, reports from birding friends on the web had spurred us on to look for and hopefully photograph the second tanager of the year, the Scarlet tanager.  The bird had been seen a couple of days ago down at Canaveral National Seashore at a location known as El Dora Road.  So with binoculars and cameras in hand, off we went.

       As we hiked along the dirt road down to the El Dora Statehouse, we encountered many a red bird.  Scarlet tanagers are red, so one would think this might be a good thing.  Unfortunately for us today, Northern cardinals are also red, and virtually every other bird we observed on our trek was this alternate bird.  The others were all basically Carolina wrens.  The chorus of both bird species singing their little four chambered hearts out was beautiful, but did nothing towards rewarding us with the target species.  At the trail’s end, we did come upon a fine perched Osprey, so I grabbed a quick shot, not knowing if this would end up being the shot  of the day or not.

       We finished out walk around the looping trail and climbed back into the VW to head out for a second site we figured might produce some migrating warblers, since our quest for the tanager seemed to be for naught.  As we slowly drove out of El Dora, we heard the monotonous refrain of the Red-eyed vireo.  Figured we stop to take a look and were suddenly thrilled to have a glimpse of the tanager!  I pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the birds to get into a better position for the hoped-for photo-op.  We had substantial confirming looks at both sexes of the Scarlet, but they remained too far distant to grant us the picture we wanted.  Maybe next time.

       We continued back to the Indian River Lagoon Preserve where we quickly came upon a Black-throated blue warbler.  This was the first we had located at the preserve and were anxious to see what else the site had to offer as we continued along the path.  One additional warbler, the Palm, was all that was to appear.

Common buckeye

       But, we did get butterflies.  A few Common buckeyes and a myriad of Great southern whites.  Where have all these butterflies come from.  Driving on Saxon Drive en route to the preserve, it looked like a Florida snow storm with literally thousands of these white gems sailing through the air.  It looked as if every flowering bush was hosting 20 – 30 Great whites and we were amazed at how many could have appeared over a period of several days.  These butterflies only live for around 5 – 8 days, and I wonder if their numbers will diminish as rapidly as they have swelled.  Only time will tell.

Great southern whites (males)

       We did come upon one more bird while at the preserve…..the Blue-gray gnatcatcher.  While preferring cicadas and aphids as their main diet, they will feed readily on butterflies, so this must have looked like the lepidopteran version of the Golden Corral to the bird.  Several of the butterflies did in fact show signs of predation with wings partly missing as evidence of a narrow escape. 

       I'm sure that many of these birds will be as interested as we are in seeing how long the butterfly boom lasts as