A bull, a cow and a calf walked into a bamboo grove...

A bull, a cow and a calf walked into a bamboo grove...

No. This is not the start of a joke.  But it is funny.

I walked outside the other day to see how my son was doing painting the exterior of our house. Timmy was making great progress.  So were a group of cattle grazing a few feet away in a nearby grove of bamboo.

Two of the three bovines that appeared in our yard

Timmy making great progress painting our house

The cattle belong to my neighbor, who grazes them in a large field abutting the east side of our property.  The pasture is surrounded by a field fence topped with two strips of barbed wire. On the portion of fence that backs up to our acreage, a long line of mature clumping bamboo provides an extra layer of separation between our two properties.

Two of the three layers of division - field fence and barbed wire

You might think that such a three-layer approach - field fence, barbed wire, bamboo - would be enough to keep cattle contained.  You'd be wrong.

Apparently, the same idiom that applies to people lusting over the color of their neighbor's lawns - the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - applies to bovines too.

Cattle chomping down on green bamboo leaves

  

On my neighbor's side of the fence, the pasture has been grazed down to brown stubble with nary a spot of green in sight.  By contrast, our side of the fence boasts a proverbial banquet of fresh, young sprouts.  

Despite the recent cold snap, our livestock-free land has sprouted a profusion of edibles.  From new bamboo shoots (cattle candy) to low-growing weeds like wild geranium (geranium carolinianum), there's a bountiful supply of tender young greens to tempt the taste-buds of just about any hungry ruminant.

Bamboo = Cattle Candy

And temptation is undoubtedly what led my neighbor's four-legged beasts into our yard.  

Somehow the not-so-dumb animals found a hole in the fence and invited themselves to lunch.  Doing so wasn't unusual - they've found their way onto our property many times over the years - but this time, they chose to chow down of a spot of greenery right next to our house.  It didn't matter that our son was only a few feet away or that I stood even closer snapping off one photo after another.  Food was what was on their mind.  Never mind the people.

No buts about it!  Cattle like bamboo

I don't have a problem with the cattle being here.  I actually like it.  When my neighbor called later to ask if he could come by to round them up I told him, no hurry.

"The animals are helping me out," I said.  They're keeping the bamboos trimmed, mowing down the weeds, fertilizing the ground and fun to look at to boot.  You don't have to mend the fence if you don't want to."

Robert Frost tells us, "Good fences make good neighbors." But a bit of permeability can be a good thing too.  

It may not be a joke when a bull, cow and calf walk into a bamboo grove but finding them there sure was funny.

Below are a few more shots from my recent bovine photo shoot

  

   

Learning to get along....

In a recent post (Pelican and dolphin - Playing together or vying for food?) I pondered the possible symbiotic relationship between two animals in search of fish - a bottlenose dolphin and a brown pelican.

The two critters I wrote about were interacting with each in a small cove off Indian River Lagoon in Bethune Beach.  It was the second time I'd observed the same behavior between a dolphin and a pelican in that location.

Below is a video I took the first time I saw it happen.

In the above video, I'm not sure if the dolphin was trying to catch a fish that the pelican stole away or whether it happened the other way around with the dolphin being the winner in the hunt for dinner. Either way, some sort of symbiotic relationship was taking place, which got me thinking about another encounter involving pelicans that I noticed last November when Ralph and I were biking along the shoreline in New Smyrna Beach.

On that occasion, a seagull was using the pelican to gain an easy meal by stealing fish right out of the bigger bird's mouth.

This type of behavior by seagulls is not unusual.  Pelicans hunt by collecting several fish at once in the large pouch attached to their beak. When their expandable sac is full, they need to shift their catch around before swallowing, a process that usually involves tossing a fish slightly into the air.

Seagulls flying overhead are on the lookout for just such action. When gulls notices a brown pelican about to eat its catch, they swoop down in an attempt to steal the fish away from the larger bird's pouch just as the pelican is about to maneuver it into position for swallowing. Sometimes a gull will even land on the pelican's head - like it did in the above video - in order to get as close as possible to a potential meal.

Although I doubt if pelicans enjoy being harassed by a colony of gulls, especially when one lands on its head, they seems to accept the behavior as an inevitable part of the process.

There are three kinds of symbiotic relationships in nature: mutualism, commensalism, or parasitism. In mutualism, both animals benefit from the relationship. In commensalism, one member benefits and the other is unaffected, whereas in parasitism, one species generally gets hurt, such as when fleas infest a dog's coat and feed on its blood.

The relationship between cattle egrets and bovines is an example
 of commensalism symbiosis because the egret benefits by eating insects
that bother cattle while bovines are unaffected by the piggybacking birds.

I'm not sure what type of symbiotic relationship happens between a dolphin and pelican or between pelicans and seagulls.  In both cases, no animal is hurt although it could be argued that by having food stolen away, one animal suffers.  More likely, both are examples of commensalism symbiosis.

All I know for sure is that the interconnectivity between organisms is an essential part of life for all creatures on our shared planet. Like the cow that tolerates the cattle egret standing on its back or the pelican enduring the squawks, jabs and thievery of seagulls, we all have to learn how to tolerate stress.  In order to live successful, fulfilling lives, people as well as animals need to get along with each other, even in those cases where interdependence is difficult or detrimental to our individual health.

If a hungry pelican can tolerate a gathering of annoying seagulls trying to steal away its catch, it seems like we humans should be able to endure the slings and arrows of our own adversaries.

Of course, even a pelican has its limit. When it has taken all the abuse it can take, a pelican will spread its wings and fly off to fish elsewhere.

Yet another lesson from our feathered friends. Breath in...breath out...move on.

Mountain or molehill...you decide

The cattle in my neighbor's pasture are grazing a mountain.

It's not a mountain by New England standards and certainly not compared to the topography of the Great Rocky or Blue Ridge ranges. But for here in Central Florida, the weed-covered mounds of earth that protrude from a corner of my neighbor's field seem mountainous, at least from a bovine perspective.

They are actually the forgotten byproducts of construction projects. My neighbor, who has an earth-moving company, has deposited leftover road-building materials in that corner for years. Stacks of red clay stand alongside piles of sand, lime rock and gravel. Over time, wind and rain have melded those raw materials together until their separate colors, textures and shapes can no longer be differentiated one from another. To the cattle's eyes, and to mine as well, the entire corner appears as one large undulating mass of plant-covered ground, a rolling oasis in an otherwise level field.

It pleased me when I drove by to see the livestock chewing their way up and down the hilly terrain. Although the cattle may have conquered Mount Surplus before, this was the first time I'd seen them there. I pulled the car off the dirt road and shut off the engine so I could quietly watch the small herd of white, brown, black and spotted cattle doing what cattle do best — graze.

As I sat there wondering if the animals were enjoying the change in altitude, an all-black calf that had made his way up to the top of a mound suddenly ran awkwardly downward. Was he playing? Did he have fun? Did the hilly terrain present a pleasant change from the dull routine of grazing flat field fodder?

The cattle were too busy filling their bellies to pay attention to the youngster's antics, but I watched with interest as the entire herd found ways to enjoy their newfound bounty. While the two young calves were exploring the sloping trails, each adult member of the slow-moving herd meandered along until it found a spot — an individual grazing station — where it could chew off and consume new plant growth, overlooked stems, seedheads and leaves.

It was a bucolic scene. If I didn't know better, I could easily imagine a real mountain, or at least a series of rolling hills in New England or North Carolina, on which a herd of cattle contentedly grazed.

I sat watching the animals for quite a while before continuing home where, on our own acreage, I passed several large piles of woodchips in various stages of decomposition. We have no livestock to graze and explore our mountains-in-the-making but we do have grandchildren who, not unlike the little black calf, have fun climbing up and running down the sloping sides of our towering stacks.

I suppose it doesn't matter if you're a long-lashed bovine or a bright-eyed child, anything a little different is bound to get attention. 

The cattle in my neighbor's pasture were grazing a mountain. It may not have been a real mountain, but that didn't seem to matter. The old adage says not to make a mountain out of a molehill, but it doesn't say anything about not building one out of woodchips or surplus road-building materials.

Bovines, birds and longtime friends

Pass by any pastureland with grazing cattle and you’ll probably notice numerous birds accompanying the herd. The birds are cattle egrets, ­Bubulcus ibis, stubby white critters with small blots of buff-colored plumage on their underbellies and crowns.

Although the cattle egret is native to tropical and semi-tropical parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, its territory has expanded throughout the world. It has even adapted to the frigid climate of Alaska.

My interest in this common, less showy member of the heron family grew a couple weeks ago during a visit by two childhood friends, Sharon Marcello LaRossa and Mary Ann Sircely.

The three of us grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, and while Sharon still lives in that area, Mary Ann relocated a few years ago to Orcas Island off the coast of Washington. In addition to sharing the same hometown and K-12 memories, we’ve developed into adults with a love of nature and a common interest in photographing birds and other wildlife.

Mary Ann, Sharon and Sherry

On the second day of their visit, we decided to tap those shared interests by doing some exploring. We visited a nearby tract of yet-to-be-developed land to see Florida scrub jays and followed that up with stops at two new nature preserves near Ferndale. From there we headed toward Trout Lake Nature Center in Eustis with a stop in downtown Eustis for lunch and a walk along the waterfront.

The Florida Scrub jay - the state's only endemic bird

It was a relaxing trip on back roads with frequent stops whenever one of us spotted an unusual bird — a loggerhead shrike in a field or a hawk soaring overhead. 

Loggerhead shrike

As we rounded a bend in the Sugarloaf Mountain area of Clermont, a herd of cattle captured my companions’ attention. Actually, it was the mixture of birds and bovines that made my friends grab their cameras and spring from the car.

Who's more curious, the cows or the tourists?

Cattle egrets and the animals they often accompany have a symbiotic relationship. The birds that stand on the backs of bovines pick off parasitic bugs like ticks, fleas and flies while egrets on the ground try to catch grasshoppers or other insects disturbed by the movement of the cattle.

A cattle egret ready to pick insects off its host's back

Because I’m so used to seeing cattle egrets, I’ve come to take them for granted. But a little research after my friends’ visit shed new light on a common sight.

In addition to bugs, this year-round resident of the Sunshine State eats moths, worms, frogs, toads, lizards, snakes, eggs, small mammals and the occasional fish. As an opportunistic feeder, it will feed at garbage dumps as well as in fields. Cleverly, it also satisfies its palate by catching insects blown out of the grass by departing airplanes and by flying toward smoke to find bugs fleeing from wildfires.

One of the most common sightings of cattle egrets doesn’t involve cattle at all. They often trail behind lawnmowers in yards to capture insects disturbed by the mower.

Egrets attracted to insects disturbed by mower
Photo credit:  Bob Couch, www.boggythicket.blogspot.com

Although my friends and I saw many birds on our daylong romp, the highlight was watching the cattle egrets and livestock interact with one another. Sharon expressed it well when she said, “For me, it was very unusual. Before our trip to Florida, I had only seen a cattle egret once and I had never seen them with cattle. I thought it was just incredible that the cattle and the egrets were so very comfortable with each other. When the egrets were coming closer to us, it seemed like the cattle moved closer, almost to protect them. They are a good example of how we should all live together and take care of one another.”

Sometimes a quick stop to take pictures yields more than a snapshot of wildlife. In this case, it made me rethink the ordinary. It also made me grateful for friends who — despite the years and distances that separate us — appreciate nature in its many crazy and unexpected ways. I had no idea the common cattle egret could provide such insight.