Invited to a family wedding in South Florida, we returned to Longboat Key this week, leaving the hot weather of the Midwest for the equally hot but more humid air of the Subtropics. With lows in the mid 70s (F) and highs in the low 90s, summer is not the ideal time to visit this area.
While winter is the quiet season in more northern latitudes, it is summer that subdues the wildlife of South Florida, causing some species to disperse to the Northern Gulf and Mid Atlantic regions. On the beaches, shorebirds are limited to small groups of turnstones and willets, joined by the solitary great blue herons and yellow-crowned night herons that stalk the shore. Small flocks of royal terns and laughing gulls, extremely vocal for much of the year, now hunt in relative silence or lounge in docile groups on the baking sand. Brown pelicans, always rather mute, patrol the coast in silent squadrons, diving now and then to grab a meal.
Away from the beach, white ibis monitor broods of growing youngsters, favoring shaded lawns, mangroves and the shallows of streams, ponds or backwater coves to escape the heat. Magnificent frigatebirds soar high overhead, avoiding the hot, thick air at the surface, ospreys retreat to the relative comfort of islands in the bay and, except for red-bellied woodpeckers and wandering flocks of parakeets, the songbirds are reclusive and quiescent. Thunderstorms, which form over the Gulf and build as they move onshore, offer temporary relief but the intense sunshine of South Florida soon converts their refreshing showers to a blanket of suffocating steam.
