What do birds do when it rains...

With all the rain we been having lately, I have to wonder...What do birds do when it rains?  

Answer:  They get wet

Great egret on mid-lake platform

Below are a few more pictures of some of my feathered friends patiently waiting for the weather to clear up at our Groveland home.

Cormorant

Collarded dove

Immature little blue heron

Florida Scrubjay

Another cormorant

Sandhill crane

One more cormorant

Young cardinal in mulberry tree

Palm warbler

Osprey

Finding beauty in a droplet of rain

The blanketflowers have stopped blooming in my yard but that doesn't mean they're no longer worthy of notice.

The other day after the rain stopped, I sat outside combing out my hair. As I brushed through the snarls, I looked over at the faded flowers. Most had already turned into spiky seedheads.

Yet, despite their lack of colorful petals, there was much to admire. Droplets of rain clung to their undersides.  Bent low from the downpour, their beauty remained.

Blanketflower seedhead adorned by droplet of rain

Bent low but not beaten, beauty remains

Blanketflower in the process of developing seeds - there's beauty in all stages of a flower's transformation

Several stages of blanketflower beauty admired by me and a pollen-seeking insect 

The sky...oh,my!

Lots of wind this evening and lightning and thunder.  It rained but it was a gentle downpour, light enough to enjoy when I walked outside.  But it was after the rain had mostly ended that the best part of the storm emerged.  A rainbow - not just one but a double rainbow - lit up the sky.  Needless to say, I took lots of pictures.

Do you see the second rainbow to the right of the first

A close up of the beautiful colors as viewed through a border of sycamore leaves

A dragonfly just happened to fly by as I shot this picture

Another closeup - In this one the purple really shows up

I kept trying to get the whole rainbow to fit in the picture but it was just too big

After taking the previous pictures, I came inside to transfer the images to the computer but when I looked out the window, the sky was even darker and the rainbow more dramatic.  So I went back out to take just a couple more shots...

The double rainbow was still there, though it was fading fast in the ever-darkening sky

Rainbow sky

Yesterday, late afternoon.

What a downpour we had!  Finally, the rain stopped and when I looked out the window, the air was filled with a golden glow. I knew what that meant.

If I went outside, there'd be a rainbow.

Sure enough, a colorful arc stretched across the lake.  Although I could see both ends, the southern arch was much more distinct. But just as thrilling as the colored arc were the blue streaks of light that spread westward from the horizon, bisecting the rainbow and continuing outward and upward.

Moment by moment, the sky changed colors.  The north end of the rainbow, which had been visible only seconds before, disappeared, hidden beneath a cover of clouds.

Even with the rainbow gone, the sky remained gorgeous.  The lake was calm with a light mist rising.

And everywhere I looked - north, south, east and west - was a gorgeous view.  I love a rainbow sky.

If at first you don't succeed...dry, dry, dry again

Where do songbirds go when it rains?  Especially young birds just learning how to live on their own.

Yesterday, I watched an almost full grown cardinal deal with a sudden downpour.  Shortly after the storm started, the fledgling, who had been eating sunflower seeds at the birdfeeder before the rain started, made a beeline for a nearby mulberry tree.  To the bird, the tree's dense foliage must have seemed like a good place to wait out the rain.  Unfortunately, that plan didn't work out so well.

As I watched, the cardinal fluttered from one branch to another. "Would this perch work?" he seemed to be wondering   "No?  How about that one?  No, that branch isn't dry enough either."

Back and forth the bird flew, rustling leaves and branches as it searched for a safe and dry perch.  I don't know where the youngster finally settled, but I do know finding the right spot didn't come easy.

I had always assumed birds instinctively knew where to go and what to do when rain comes pelting down.  But the juvenile cardinal proved me wrong.  Just like with people, sometimes birds also make many mistakes before finally figuring out what works and what doesn't.

With all the rain lately, my little cardinal friend should have many opportunities to perfect the art of waiting out the rain.  Stay dry, little fellow.

It's raining it's pouring...

A "Simply" Extra
What a storm tonight!

The rain poured down, the wind picked up.  A beautiful storm

It started to storm just after we returned got home from berry picking. While unloading the car, I glanced at the lake and saw a sandhill crane in the distance, standing on the island where the cranes had their nest.

With all this rain, there's not much of an island left but one of the cranes still spends the night there occasionally

I haven't seen the family of cranes since they moved to an abutting property when the baby was 12 days old.  But every now and then the male returns to the island where they built their nest.

Seeing him makes me hopeful that one day the entire family - mom, dad and their baby - will come back to our property.  Baby cranes can fly when they are 70 days old and that's just about how long it's been since the fluffy chick hatched out of its egg.  Perhaps the male crane returns to the nesting site by himself to check things out before bringing back the whole family.  I like to think so anyway.

A couple other pictures I took today during the downpour:

Cucumber growing bigger by the minute with all the water coming down

Green peppers that we're hoping will turn red soon.  Maybe the rain will help.

And finally, a picture of the Blue Timber Bamboo by the clay wall.  Bamboos love rain.   It makes the new shoots grow tall even faster than they normally do, about a foot a day!  

An island rises

In 2012, three turtles consider the emerging island of peat to be an excellent place to catch some rays on an April afternoon

Simply Living
April 9, 2012

An island is being born. I can see it from my kitchen window.

Beneath the shimmering surface of our 12-acre lake lie scattered mounds of peat left over from a mining process that ended a few years before we purchased the property. Some mounds are small. Others are big.

One of the broadest swaths of submerged soil sits smack in the center of the lake, only it isn't underwater anymore.

Day-by-rainless-day, the lake level gets lower and the island of peat becomes more and more visible. Last week I couldn't see the island at all. A mere seven days later it was large enough to support three turtles soaking up the midday rays. If the drought continues, it soon will be to the point it was 11 years ago when a pair of sandhill cranes chose the peat island for a nest site.

In 2001, water levels dropped so drastically it exposed a huge mid-lake island of peat. Although by then we had been living on the property for nine years, it was the first time we saw the peaty mass. Before, it had always been underwater.

We weren't the only ones to notice the change. The black mucky refuge attracted all kind of birds along with a variety of turtles, alligators and otters. Some came to perch, to hunt or to sun, but a pair of cranes staked a claim. They set about building a scrappy nest out of sticks and reeds and promptly filled it with two large brown speckled eggs. Predators arrived to case the situation but mama and papa crane were protective parents. They scared off or kept at bay any animal intent on devouring their offspring.

A family of sandhill cranes, one crow, an otter and a turtle took advantage of an exposed peat island in 2001.

As much as I worried about the low water level that year, I enjoyed the daily antics of the cranes and other critters. On one memorable day, I woke up to see not only the crane family (by then two babies had hatched) but also a crow, an otter and a turtle on the island.

It has been over a decade since the water level was that low but it seems to be happening all over again. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is look out the window. How big is the island today? What animals are on it? Will the cranes nest there again? If they do, will summer rains come and wash it away?

I have mixed feelings when I look out at the island.

On one hand, I want the rains to come. The drought is severe. Plants are suffering. Water levels have receded. We need rain to replenish our own supply as well as to satisfy the thirst of plants and animals.

On the other hand, wildlife is adapting. I see more turtles now than during wet periods and that means the otters probably will return to snatch easy meals. Previously submerged landmasses like our peat islands now provide safe harbor for birds. Plants are springing up in the recently exposed soil and more ospreys than usual have been hovering overhead in search of crowded fish in a decreasingly smaller pond.

Change is one of life's few givens. It happens whether we want it to or not. Rather than fret over possibilities beyond our control, it's sometimes best to accept the inevitable while focusing on the positives that accompany all situations.

It's not every day one is privy to the birth of an island. I'm excited to see what happens next.

Rain in Florida never loses its power to surprise

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel July 19, 2010)

I like to watch rain. I like to sit on the porch, look out at the lake and watch raindrops make circles in the still water. I like listening to the tattoo of rain on a metal roof, and I'm especially fond of the way showers appear out of nowhere, only to disappear just as quickly.

The other day I experienced one of those sudden downpours in a most unusual way.

Ralph and I were taking a late-afternoon swim to cool off and relax. We were more than halfway across the lake, chatting amiably about the day's events and doing lazy breaststrokes through the still water. Ralph was midsentence when I interrupted him.

"Do you hear that?" I asked, somewhat anxiously. "I think it's about to rain on us."

No more than two minutes after Ralph turned his head to look where I was pointing, a wave of coolness swept over us. As the temperature dipped, the sky darkened and a noise not unlike the sound of oncoming traffic grew louder.

"It's either rain or a train heading our way," he replied.

Instinctively, we turned around and began swimming back home. The shore in front of our house seemed farther away than usual. As we increased the speed of our strokes, raindrops began to dot the water just south of where we were swimming.

"Here it comes," I said, pointing to the curtain of droplets quickly closing in on us.

Moments later, percussive pellets of water landed on our heads. The downpour had caught up with us.

"Good thing we're already wet," I said. "Otherwise, we'd be soaked."

Ralph smiled and looked my way. I could see that his glasses had begun to fog up. On the shore our towels were waiting, but by the time we reached the beach, I knew they'd be too wet to do us much good. We stopped talking and swam on. The noise of the falling rain would have made conversation impossible anyway.

Eventually we touched bottom, stood up and stepped out of the warm lake. Despite the rain, we'd been comfortable while swimming. But exposed to the air, our bodies felt chilled. We grabbed our wet towels and ran to the house.

Since I've been living in Florida, I've seen it rain on one side of a street and not on the other. I've watched dark walls of precipitation fall from distant clouds and rainbows appear after showers. I've driven through thunderstorms so intense that I had to pull over because my windshield wipers couldn't keep up. I've seen the dry soil soak up water like a sponge and large puddles evaporate in the summer sun. I've played in the rain with my children and bounced on the trampoline while rain splashed around us. But until recently, I had never experienced a rainstorm while swimming.

"I'm glad it was just a shower and not a thunderstorm," Ralph said, once we were back on land and toweled dry.

I couldn't have agreed more.

Rain, rain: Unnerving or mundane

The view from the porch on a rainy day.

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel June 29, 2009)

I've been enjoying the summer rains. The steady tattoo on the metal roof is a soothing sound on a hot afternoon.

I didn't always feel this way. When we lived on Cape Cod, rainy weather made me nervous. The house we lived in had two large skylights, and one of them leaked. I never knew when it would happen. Sometimes it would rain like crazy and we'd have no problem at all. Other times -- maybe when the rain came from a certain direction or with enough force -- water would work its way through the seams and seep into the house in a steady stream.

Although my clever, inventive husband can usually fix anything, the leaky skylight had him stumped. He repeatedly caulked, flashed and sealed the glass, but no matter what he tried, rain inevitably found its way around the repair. Many a rainy night I lay in bed tired but too tense to sleep. My ears were on alert, listening for the drip-drip-drip of rain falling on the yellow pine floors. I'm glad those days are over. As much as I enjoyed the expansive view those skylights provided, I don't miss the anxiety they caused.

In Florida, we live in a skylight-free home. When we built our house, I wanted to install some overhead glass, but Ralph was insistent. "Never again!" he declared. "No more skylights. No more leaks."

He was right about the leaks -- our Florida home doesn't have any. No matter how hard the rain falls or how long a downpour lasts, I don't worry about drips seeping through to ruin ceilings, stain floors or infiltrate siding. Now when it showers, I simply sit back and enjoy the show.

And what a show it has been! After months of drought, plants have responded with a flush of new growth. If one measure of happiness is the loudness of song, then birds and frogs must be a happy lot. Lakes respond, too. After so many wet kisses, water levels have begun to rise. It's a slow dance back to normality, but with the percussive beat of raindrops pouring down, a seasonal rhythm is once again in play.

I find myself gravitating to the porch on rainy afternoons. From beneath the shelter of a well-sealed roof, I can watch the liquid world in action.

Puddles form on the dirt driveway. Droplet-sized splashes dot the lake's surface while a cool breeze replaces the stifling heat. Often I see rainbows.

I've never prized precipitation more than I do now. We went without regular rainfalls for so long, I'd forgotten how uplifting a downpour can be. Rain can be revitalizing. It washes away dirt, dust and stickiness, replenishes the aquifer, increases lake levels and quenches the parched throats of both animal and plant life. It can also be fierce. As my leaky skylight taught me many years ago, even a light rainfall can cause heavy damage, given the right conditions.

As we work our way through the first month of hurricane season, I'm hoping that the conditions for destructive storms don't materialize. Let lakes fill with water. Let plants drink their fill. But let's hope that people enjoy inclement weather within safe, dry shelters.