What’s the Play Here?

Hope all is well with everyone in the blogosphere! We are busy finishing up the Christmas decorations and making sure we are ready for my side of the family’s Christmas gathering this week. Although our parents are now looking down upon us (hopefully approvingly), I am very thankful for the chance to get together with my brothers and their wonderful families during the holidays – granted, seeing our 7 Great Nieces/Nephews reminds me I’m older than I act ha. We will have a similar celebration on Linda’s side closer to Christmas.

In between the hustle and bustle, I am doing my best to stay on top of the post production. We will likely be calling it a year as we get closer to Christmas to allow our virtual Intrigued family to spend time celebrating with their real families and to recharge the batteries for another exciting year of bringing you our adventures from the field. Until then, let’s keep the ball rolling on the “Baby Month” theme.

Hit the jump if you like your shot for bird fever with an extra dose of cuteness!

A couple of posts ago, we brought you the offspring of one of the largest birds we have in North America, the Sandhill Crane. One couldn’t help but notice how different those colts start out from the form they will take on as they mature into adulthood. Well, today we are going to take a look at a similar situation – specifically Limpkin chicks!

“Okay mom and dad, what’s the play here?”

“Got it mom. Okay team, I want you to behave yourselves, no mouthing off, no wandering off into the swamps, no taunting those Neanderthal, keratin covered snout breathers, we are going to keep ourselves clean and proper and most of all we are going to respect MY AUTHORITAY!”

You know in every family there is at least one troublemaker … there is speculation that it is usually the last born, but clearly that is flawed reasoning based on jealous older brothers … I mean researchers. Clearly the same holds true in the birding world broods.

“Screw you, I’ve got wings and I say damn The Man, I’m gonna use them. Whose with me!?!”

“Hey moron, those stubby things aren’t going to get you ANYWHERE, get your ass back here. Mom, this fuzz for brains isn’t listening to me, should I hit him over the head with this Snail?..Pretty please?..At least just a heavy tap!?! Fine, but if these wings were longer I’d slap that grin off your face you brat”

Quite the family unit they got there eh? Fortunately, for these chicks, they are relatively the same age – try growing up with brothers that are 9 and 10 years older than you …or in Linda’s case, 19 and 20 years older .. but I digress hehehe.

As with the Sandhill chicks, these new Limpkins will grow into a much larger frame. Their bills will elongate to provide them the tool necessary to reach in and cut the Snail and Mussels from their shells. They will reach a length of around 26 inches with an impressive wingspan of nearly 42 inches. A definitely improvement on those stubby things they flaunt at this age.

When I first arrived at the Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in Gainesville, Florida, back in April 2023, there was a individual with binoculars hanging out on the boardwalk. I usually have Ron chat up the locals, but he wasn’t able to be down there with us that time. The local quickly deduced I was there for birding and immediately offered up that he had been watching a Limpkin family daily there for some time and was trying to locate them again. The day before, the parents had pushed them out of a nest in a nearby tree into the swampy waters below. He was hoping all 7 of them made it through the night. This was at the high end of their usual clutch size (4-7) and he seemed a bit concerned not knowing where they were.

Obviously I found them not much farther down the boardwalk. I actually made a previous post about that first discovery (link here). The best news, all 7 were still accounted for.

This series of shots was taken on our visit the next day. I wanted to go back and see how they were doing – prepared for the worst, but optimistic. Sure enough, they had survived another night. The parents had now improved their raft by pulling vegetation from around the sides and placing it purposefully on the growing perch.

An immediate count was made of the chicks 1..2..3..4..5..6…oh no. My heart sank a bit wondering if tragedy had taken place. Surviving a harrowing push from a branch high above the water only to succumb to the demons below was depressing. Wait…wait..wait there was the 7th one, clearly driving its parents and older brother crazy as it kept running off the raft into the tall greens only to re-emerge a few seconds later with a big grin on its beak. Okay, that last bit may be an unfounded stretch, but it clearly looked to be enjoying itself at the expense of its parent’s sanity.

I wished them well and went on my way.

Just as an update from our recent visit to Paynes Prairie, they are seriously down on water level. All of the swampish area out from the boardwalk is nearly dry. There must be some water beneath the now very dense vegetation based purely on the fact a few Limpkins were still hunting through it for Snails, but that was minimal at best. We then moved out to take shots of the Snail Kites which, along with the Limpkins, was the target for the visit. The “sinkhole” waters out from the covered observation deck was severely shrunk with just a small stream coming from the inlet a ways down the path. We could not find any Snail Kites that were in abundance the last time we were there. What was very visible was the number of “Neanderthal, keratin covered snout breathers” that were absolutely massed on the newly enlarged flats around the hole. As they say, sometimes it is better to be uninformed hehehe.

Will bring it to a close there. Hope you found this latest entry in the “Baby Month” chronicles enjoyable if not heart tugging. It has been a lot of fun bringing you these early stages of development from our trips into the field. Take care everyone and now I shall sit back and wait for the “Hey, you were Mom’s favorite” and similarly fallacied texts to start hitting my inbox.