Are you Supposed to be Here?

Florida is no stranger to inappropriate visitors. Not all of them are quite as bizarre as that sign above. Because of the sub-tropical climate, it’s a great place for non-native flora and fauna to flourish and spread. This includes the more high-profile invaders like the Burmese python, Python bivittatus, in the Everglades, but also many species of animals and plants that don’t always grab headlines like a 12ft-long snake (the average length of a wild python). Thankfully, not all of these visitors cause problems for people or native wildlife.

About a week ago, I came across this second kind of unexpected visitor (the nondescript kind that doesn’t cause any problems). I was walking along the side of a building and I came across a small bird. It was nearly motionless and I had to look carefully to confirm that it was indeed alive and moving. It barely reacted to my presence, so I was able to take a quick picture.

If you don’t recognize this species, don’t feel bad, I didn’t either. To me, it most closely resembled a nuthatch (not a common bird here in Florida, but very common to the wooded areas of the midwestern US, where I first took Ornithology in college). The main reason I wanted a picture was to compare to my Birds of North America field guide back home. I was not expecting to use this individual as the subject for one of my stories. However, that changed when I looked up the species in my bird book.

While I am not 100% certain, the only bird that even closely resembled the coloration on this individual in the book was a black-and-white warbler, Mniotilta varia. Warblers are a very numerous group of birds, over one hundred species in the New World. They are mostly small and if you are trying to identify them in the field, you often need to know their calls, since they like to hide. Because of this, they aren’t one of my favorite group of birds. This species was indeed native to Florida, so I didn’t feel the encounter to be particularly interesting until I looked more closely at its range map.

While I had never seen an individual of this species before, my interest was really piqued when I realized how out of place this particular bird was. While the species is not a stranger to Florida, it certainly shouldn’t be here at the end of July in the middle of the summer. It should be farther north in its breeding territory.

Much like the basking heron from last week, I doubt I’ll ever know for certain why this bird ended up here, but I do have a few guesses. I had recently had a short conversation with a person visiting from Cincinnati, and she had commented that they were experiencing a major heat wave back home. Such a heat wave might have caused some birds to move along and try and find somewhere else to breed. It’s also possible that this individual ended up in Florida the same way many birds end up where they shouldn’t be: a storm blows them off course. This particular bird was in Naples, which is a big detour, but I have read of storms blowing birds thousands of miles away from their normal territory.

In the end, the actual reason for this warbler being here at the exact wrong time of year isn’t as important to me as the chance to speculate about it. Like so many things, science is about the journey, not the destination (forgive me the cliché, but I think it fits). In science, there is no finished product; every idea must be continually refined. Constantly seeing and experiencing new things and being able to think about them are what keep me engaged in the process.

This is true even while writing about my experiences after the fact. When I looked up the scientific name of the black-and-white warbler, I also came across some information that I had initially missed. Like the majority of warblers, this species feeds primarily on insects. However, its foraging method is quite different from it close relatives. This species moves up and down tree trunks and branches, which is not typical for a warbler. Instead, it resembles the feeding behavior of a nuthatch. I was so excited to read that. Somehow, something about the bird reminded me of nuthatches when I saw it, even though it was on the ground and not foraging on a tree. It’s nice to know I haven’t lost some of my insights and I also feel like it validates my decision to include scientific names in these stories. If I hadn’t done so, I never would have come across that fascinating little tidbit.

For next time, I think I’ve gotten into enough of a groove that I don’t want to stall any longer in sharing about a topic that has shaped my personal and scientific interests for a long time. I am, of course, talking about sea turtles.