#Florida snails

[whatnext10]

Cedar Key Isn’t Just About Beautiful Birds

Helical Not too long ago, I went out to Cedar Key in search of white pelicans. I had no luck in that department, but I did see plenty of other beautiful birds, including several of our other winter visitors. Although Cedar Key is always a great place to see birds, it’s also a great place to see all sorts of other interesting nature, too. In past trips I’ve found flowers, spiders, butterflies,…

[great-and-small]

snail kite meme #3

[coffeenuts]

[spinus-pinus]

Snail Kite Rostrhamus sociabilis

5/24/2022 Lake Tohopekaliga, Florida

Unfortunately my best photo of a snail kite. The reason it looks so weird is because it was right upon arrival to this park, and my camera was all fogged up from the humidity on the inside. So I did my best with editing, but it's a very funky looking photo. Regardless, I was so so happy to see this snail kite immediately! It was the reason I visited this location. Snail kites have been one of my favorite birds for years, and I feel very lucky to have seen one in the wild.

[bigpappahope]

Manatee tree snail

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

gonna suggest a substantial part of f1 season antics to be having logan read real and true facts about florida's ecology and invasive species to other drivers who experience all five stages of grief with every word

[shiraglassman]

Friend🐌

[ilovemirojaro]

There's a small lake near my house and I found this big shell by the shore.

I have no idea the species. I think it was placed there by a person since I don't think there are any freshwater snails in Florida that are this big or have a shell shaped like this.

[bloghrexach]

🐱 … Hey, I think my cats want to go to the post office!! … 🐱

@hrexach

[whatnext10]

Interesting Little Manatee Tree Snails Devour Algae

Eager for Algae I realized that I hadn’t posted any video in quite awhile, so I thought why not? Video isn’t my main means of expression, but some things are just better in a video, and this is definitely one of them. Every spring and summer I have quite a few of these little manatee tree snails (Drymaeus dormani) in my yard and around the house. Now don’t freak out, my gardening friends. These…

[charring58]

The common garter snake is one of the most well known snakes in Minnesota. They live in many different rural and suburban areas and are found on hilltops, along rivers, and in backyards.

[anipgarden]

One thing I've found important but also sometimes difficult to learn is that the difference between a 'butterfly garden' and a 'biodiverse habitat' is that you gotta accept that sometimes things are gonna die.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't try to tend to things. If I find a bunch of oleander aphids harassing some of my young milkweed plants, I'll get the hose and spray them off no problem--hard to tend a garden and save milkweed seeds if they're getting the life sucked out of them before they can even go to seed. If I see a lot of snails starting to devour some of my flowers and turn them into brown mush, I'll pick them off and toss them to the neighborhood ducks.

But with that being said, creating a biodiverse environment for wildlife means there's gonna be prey animals and predator animals, and some insects may fill several niches. I plant milkweed and other flowers so monarchs and other insects can enjoy them as a host plant and a nectar source. Some years, I can barely even find large caterpillars because the wasps just go ham and pig out. That doesn't mean I'm gonna hunt down any and every wasp nest and spray it to death for being oh-so-mean to my precious baby caterpillars! They're just trying to survive, just like everything else in my garden!

And in the grand scheme, everything is part of a cycle that feeds everything else. The caterpillars feed the wasps, which then feed the cardinals and chickadees and mocking birds. Later in the summer, I always see some ladybugs, and my aphid problems drop even without me bringing out the hose. Sure, the snails are a major problem for me, right now. But they might be feeding things I'm not even seeing, late at night--like blindworms, or possums, or frogs, and maybe even the birds are going at them when I'm not outside.

The literal basis of my pollinator garden is so things can eat other things--the caterpillars feed on the milkweed, after all. I can't deny that they're part of an ecosystem, and the effort in trying to just sprays poisons everywhere for no real reason.

If I really wanted to, I could try and collect every single tiny little baby caterpillar and keep them in a little container, so I can rear them by hand, if it hurts too much to think of them getting eaten by wasps. My next door neighbor did that. Brought in 26 caterpillars to protect them from outside enemies, and promptly ran out of milkweed. Out of all that, only maybe 10 tops made it. And the instant she set out her stripped-bare plants again, there were already more monarchs coming in and laying seeds on the stems of plants that just barely were starting to leaf back out.

Nature's a balancing act. Monarchs have been dealing with pests like wasps through all this time. Every time I wonder where the caterpillars are, I sure can still find a few dozen eggs on my plants. Butterflies are still dropping by, still laying tons of eggs on my plants. And it's not like I go out there five times a day to count caterpillars--for all I know, there could still be dozens of those little guys growing up where I don't even see them.

I feel like I'm losing my point. Long story short, if wasps are eating some caterpillars in my backyard, I'm not gonna lose my mind. I want my garden to be part of a wider ecosystem, not a members-only club.

[moltengarnet]

Visiting Orlando Walt Disney World in 2020

I visited all 4 parks because tickets were cheap.

Magic Kingdom

EPCOT (got a fancy papusa during the food and wine festival)

Disney Springs (although I still call it Downtown Disney sometimes)

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This isn't, of course, an excuse to go spreading invasive species around in the hopes they'll fix some other ecological problem. But this is certainly a small silver lining in the overall disaster that is invasive species, particularly in an ecosystem that is as damaged and out of balance as the Everglades. South American apple snails can't fix massive wetlands draining, or the fact that invasive Burmese pythons are basically eating all the vertebrate wildlife. And they're already having a deleterious effect on native vegetation.

But for now, maybe they can help the snail kite hang on until habitat can be restored--to include boosting numbers of the native apple snail species.

[susiestamps]

US 1982 20¢ Florida - Mockingbird, Orange blossom (from State Birds & Flowers)