Nature You'll See in May (5.7.10)

By: Cleo Robertson

Welcome to spring in our special Paradise. To me, this is a magical month because there is so much wildlife and weather activity around—fish, flowers, shells and wonderful lightening storms that show all of God’s beauty in full force. It is also the beginning of stingray season and sunburns, so I’ll address the downside of summer too.

Shells are rolling in. The live ones are mating and the dead ones are ready to be collected. Here is what I found in one walk on the beach in May (see photo to left).

Welcome to the windy city in May
At sunset one evening as we waited to ring the bell in Pass-a-Grille at the Paradise Grille, I heard some people complaining about all the wind in May. What these people didn’t realize is that the wind is essential. It strengthens the tree limbs, particularly palms, so when a hurricane comes they are strong. The wind also brings in lots of shells, egg sacks for shells and other treasures.

On a windy day, the trick is to find spots out of the wind. Get behind a seawall, then hunker down and read a book. Or find a sunny side of your house and lay out in a lounge chair. Or, if you’re staying in a hotel, walk around until you find that shady spot and settle in. On a perfect day, get in the water (remember always to shuffle…stingrays can come in early if the weather is good,) float or pretend you’re a submarine or dolphin and jump up and down in the water. Remember to put on sunscreen.

If you really want to feel like a kid, after a nice dip in the water go roll in the fine sugar sand up by the dunes (not IN the dunes) until your front is fully sandy. Then turn over and just luxuriate in the warm bed of sand. The sand protects you from the sun. After ten minutes or so I go back into the water, which now feels totally warm, and rinse off the sand, enjoying my more relaxed body. Life is a beach and we have the best. And the best part of this month? Swimming can be an everyday event. Enjoy it.

Something you should know: One time when I was out on a boat, a man who was fishing with me caught a bird as he cast into the air. We didn’t know what we were doing and I fear we traumatized the bird more, as we tried to bring it in. My good friend, Bill McArthur, wrote out instructions for handling a wild bird when you are helping it, so here goes: 1) If you hook a bird, don’t just cut the line. Both the hook and the loose trailing line are dangerous and can eventually kill the bird. 2) Reel the bird in slowly. Use a landing net if you have one, or throw a towel over its’ head while in the water to calm it down. Ask someone else to help you if you can. 3) When you can handle the bird, tuck its’ wings in beside it and hold its’ beak snugly in your hand and slightly open so the bird can breathe. 4) Locate the hook and push it through the skin until you see the barb. Cover the barb with something so when you snip it off it won’t hurt anyone. 5) Before letting the bird go, check for any fishing line wrapped around the limbs of the bird. 6) If the bird is seriously sick or injured call Save-Our-Seabirds at 864-0679 and have them pick the animal up for treatment. Thanks, Bill, for these good instructions and here’s to hoping you never have to use them.

Birds flying around: If you’ve been walking the beach lately, you probably have seen the Oyster Catcher as it adeptly opens bivalve shells, like coquinas, and eats the animal inside. It is a relatively large bird with a brown and white body and black head. The most distinguishing identifier is the bright, long, red bill with which it prods and picks under sand or mud for its food. They’re on the beach almost daily. Recently, I was fortunate to watch a redheaded woodpecker cleaning a tree and I was absolutely delighted to see the mockingbirds chasing each other in their mating dance. As I said last month, watch for seagulls mating too.

Critters to manage: As roaches and palmetto bugs look for water, you will find them more and more in your house, popping our of drawers or climbing up walls. I keep a spray handy but most importantly, I put out roach hotels in every drawer, nook and cranny. The second group of critters to watch for is fruit rats. When I wander around in Pass-a-Grille I can see them walking on the electric and phone lines as they climb to the palm trees and into houses. How to avoid these critters running all over? Pick up all fruit from fruit trees immediately! They are hungry, they eat fruit, if the fruit is left on the ground, the rat population grows. They give birth every five to six weeks and have six to eight pups at a time. Put out rat poisoning in the attic, garage, shed (being careful children and animals can’t reach it). Alos, pick up the fruit, put it by the curb and let people take all they want.

Stingrays and cow-nosed rays: Something you should know: I saw a photo in the paper once and it showed a school of cow-nosed rays cruising along the shore. The article said “stingrays cruising…” and they weren’t stingrays at all, they were cow-nosed rays, and there is a very big difference. I want to explain the difference and to also give you a little insight into several other rays we have in the Gulf and bays around us.

The difference between Cow-nosed rays and Atlantic Stingrays:

• A cow-nosed ray is dark brown on top and has pointed wings and a flat, wide mouth (looks like a cow’s mouth) with eyes close to the mouth and the sand. A stingray is a light, sandy color and has rounded wings with eyes on top of its head (they are usually the only thing you see when walking or snorkeling), with a mouth underneath.

• Cow-nosed rays usually swim in groups of ten or more (but not always) and are constantly moving along the shore, eating.
• Stingrays move along the sand most often by themselves looking for food and presumably when full, settle down into the sand to take a nap as they have been doing for millions of years. They love to hang out close to shore or within 20’ of shore most often.
• A cow-nosed ray has a barb on its tail but it cannot swing the tail up to hit you in the leg—it is not moveable. If you wanted to get hurt, you would have to grab the moving and wary ray by the tail. If a school comes around you when you are in the water, just watch quietly and they will pass you by. I even put on my snorkel and go swim with them…they let me right in and we have a good old time!
• A stingray’s tail has a very poisonous barb close to its’ body that can be swung up when threatened and get you right in the leg, ankle or foot.
• Both rays are under 5 pounds and as a general rule, if there is a group, they are cow-nosed rays. If they are alone, they are usually a stingray.

The only way to avoid stingrays is to shuffle all the time when you’re in the water. I even keep my big toe down so I can’t accidentally step on one. On the other hand, I always shuffle and I won’t push my luck! I’ll talk about the large Southern Stingrays in another issue.

A few facts about lightning: Every year there are more than 16 million thunder storms around the world—an average of 45,000 a day. At any time there are 2,000 in progress. Thunder can be usually heard 10 miles away and releases as much energy as a dozen Hiroshima-type atomic bombs exploding simultaneously. The main lightning stroke can reach 54,000 degrees F, five times hotter than the surface of the Sun. As it moves it heats the air along its path to a very high temperature. This causes an immense clap of thunder as the heated air expands outward at great speed. My personal experiences with lightening include watching it hit a Cabbage Palm and blow the entire top off, and having it hit my house and fuse all plugs, sockets and wires together into huge messes. Back in the early days of Pass-a-Grille there was a blind man who walked the streets with a white cane and a gold watch fob in his pocket. Lightening struck him one day, knocked him to the ground and turned his watch into black ashes. He, however, lived. It’s remarkable to watch lightening and if you see it, it hasn’t struck you, so relax in a safe spot (not under a tree) and see the lovely designs it makes.

Monarch butterflies find friends on St. Pete Beach: Scott Simmons, a long-time resident of Pass-a-Grille, and his wife, Cathy Taylor say in a brochure they have prepared about Monarchs:

“Each type of butterfly lays its eggs on a certain plant. The Monarch butterfly, for example, lays its eggs on milkweed. When the eggs hatch, the tiny baby caterpillars eat only the leaves of the milkweed plant. And they eat a lot, doubling in size every day for about a week until they are about the size of your little finger. Finally, they crawl away from the milkweed to find a safe place to hang upside down, shed their skin for the fifth and final time, and form a beautiful jade green chrysalis with gold dots around the edge. A week later a full-grown adult Monarch butterfly emerges.

”Adult butterflies have no mouth and feed only on the nectar of flowers by sipping through their straw-like proboscis. They mate and then the female searches for the right larval host plant on which to lay her eggs. In a week to 10 days the eggs hatch and the cycle of life begins again.” As Scott says, “Cathy and I have had the most luck with Monarchs, releasing over 200 in the last year from the small screen enclosure I built to hold 4 3-gallon containers of milkweed. When we see a caterpillar (green and yellow) in the garden, we put it in the enclosure to protect it from predator wasps and release the butterfly when it emerges from its chrysalis.”

So if you enjoy having butterflies around, go to Willow Tree or any other good nursery where you can buy healthy milkweed plants as well as many others that draw butterflies (dill, parsley, wild petunia, plumbago, and red penta to name a few). To see a video of the entire life cycle of a Monarch, go to April Combined Nature Article—it’s amazing to see.

A Wondrous adventure: One year I took my little pup tent and drove down to Key West to hang out for a few weeks. I set up my tent in a State Park where water was within 50 feet of me on either side. About 9 p.m. I noticed dark clouds forming, so I decided to dig a pit around my tent, bag up all my belongings and get ready for a downpour. When I was done I laid back and said, “Okay, God, let her rip.” About 10 p.m. it came, BIG. I could feel the rumble of the earth under me as lightening passed through the ground and more rain poured down than I had ever imagined existed. I watched the top of my tent inside get wet and start to drip, but soon it was saturated and stopped.

Lightening was bursting in all four quadrants of the sky. The storms lasted about an hour and when they were gone, I was sound asleep. The next morning in Key West locals told me that they had never seen so many storms hit at one time. Lucky me again.

A word about sunburns: In April I got my first real good burn in years. I had snorkeled and walked the beach for two hours with one coat of sunscreen on me. When I woke in the night in hot sweats, my back burning up, I immediately got out of bed, got a knife and went outside and cut a piece of the aloe plant off. With the knife, I cut the spines off both sides of the leaf and then cut it down the middle. I rubbed as much aloe on me as I could, using my thumbnail to make it juicy every now and then. When my back was covered and it had dried, then I laid down on a cold package of frozen chicken. You can use frozen vegetables or anything that is frozen (put a pillowcase or t-shirt over whatever you use so the cold is not directly on the burn). Within 15 minutes I was back to sleep and in the morning it was all over. I promised my body I would put sunscreen on every hour from now on!!!

My latest trick for a day at the beach is to blend up fresh aloe, olive oil and water. I make it thin, put it in a spray bottle and put it in the refrigerator. Viola! When you’ve showered and the red skin is crying, take out your cool little spray bottle and be instantly relieved and happy. Spray it often until the redness goes away, especially on your face.

May is one of my favorite months. Traffic has thinned out, the water has warmed up and everything is alive with new growth/birth. Whether you are a visitor or a local, take a few minutes of your time and look around you, smell the air full of jasmine or other wonderful aromas, and take a deep breath. We also hope you will pick up trash as you walk—we don’t want our visitors to see the beaches dirty, now do we? We live in Paradise so say hello to everyone you pass and remember that every day is a gift to be opened and enjoyed. Hasta luego.

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