Egret vs. Iguana

 It is often said that iguanas, which are an invasive species in Florida, have no natural enemies here which makes it really hard to control their population explosion.  But it seems that the native fauna are starting to adapt to the invasion and finding it to be a new food source.  At least that seems to be the case for the very young iguanas.  For the second time, I have seen a great egret in the backyard hunt and then eat a little iguana!  The egret landed on the dock post and then walked along the backyard,  He descended quickly into the ferns along the bank, which I thought was odd, and came up with a little iguana in his beak.  It was squirming a lot, but he positioned it headfirst and swallowed it down whole.  We have a ton of the little iguanas so a nest must have hatched.  I wish we had more egrets in the backyard!  Maybe this one will tell his friends.

He caught one!

Repositioning it for the swallow

Relaxing after a nice meal

Our favorite cormorant was back resting on the sprinkler floater duck after fishing.  It never ceases to make me smile to see it sitting there.

Trying his luck to catch dinner

Fishing didn't go well so resting before the next try

 

Got to love those beautiful eyes!

 

A green heron, probably the same one I saw last time, was back but this time he is showing his crest.  I think it looks cute when they raise their crest, which they don't do very often.

Strutting around and showing off his crest.

A poor Monarch butterfly was trying to suck nectar from the flowers on a milkweed plant on the patio right through the pool screen.  So I put one of my biggest plants outside and she drank from all the flowers and even seemed to lay some eggs.  The poor thing stayed over a half hour and returned later.  She must have been starving!  I later found one egg on the plant.  I will wait for it to hatch and then bring the caterpillar into my enclosure.  The plant itself is too big to fit inside it. 

Today a bee was pollinating the flowers on the milkweed plant, too.  I just hope the iguanas stay away.  That's the downside of putting the plants outside.  Usually, I put them in hanging baskets but that didn't seem to work this time, and I only got eggs on the plants on the ground.

There appear to be four Monarch caterpillars inside my butterfly enclosure now.  They are growing so they are now easier to see.  One of the four is smaller than the others.

This guy is pretty big and very hungry!

 

The outside cat that usually comes to our house every evening for some food was here again last night but brought along a friend this time.   We've named our regular visitor Spotsi.  I'm still not sure if it's a girl or a boy.  I kind of think boy from the way he hisses and charges at my kitties who sometimes watch him from the window, but the rest of the family think it's a girl.  Spotsi clearly has no home because sometimes he stays most of the night in a box which we lined with a towel for him to sleep in.  It's under the cover of the front porch so he can stay dry if it rains.

Spotsi is a dinner regular

Spotsi brought this little friend for dinner.