Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/96141
Sarasota News Leader November 30, 2012 Page 62 Dear Alexis: inhabited island so it is hard to believe that it was once the temporary county seat of Dade Thank you for your interest in the wonderful County after its separation in 1836 from Monbirds inhabiting your neighborhood and for roe County. It was on Indian Key that Auduyour inquiry into Ardea Alba the Great Egret, bon first encountered the Great White Heron. also known as Great White Egret, Common Egret, Large Egret or (mistakenly) the Great In 1821, while in New Orleans, Audubon White Heron (Ardea herodias occidentalis). had completed his fabulous drawing of the exquisite Great Egret in breeding plumage, Your questions about its intense concentra- and finally he came across its rare cousin — tion while hunting and its adaptability to hu- a larger, stockier bird, lacking aigrettes but man environs brought to mind a wonderful bestowed with pristine white feathers and a account by John James Audubon of his expe- gorgeous head plume during breeding season. riences with its cousin, the Great White Her- Even Audubon could not distinguish between on. Forgive this apparent digression, but the male and female. But it is not important that two species share the same characteristics: he or you could not tell them apart, only that They do not display sexual dimorphism; Great the birds do! Egrets hunt in classic Heron fashion, standing immobile or wading through wetlands to Audubon proved to the world that these birds capture prey with deadly jabs of their yellow bore white feathers throughout — something bills; and they both have fascinated early nat- other naturalists had long disputed. He also uralists and ornithologists because of their all- commented, just as you did, that some were easily approached and others flew off before over pristine white feathers. he was even within a thousand meters of What you read here about the characteristics them. And guess what he did with the ones of the Great White Heron, which exists only that were easily approachable? He captured on the Keys and in southernmost Florida, also a pair and took them all the way to Charlesapplies to Ardea Alba. ton, S.C., and presented them as a gift to his Audubon had a very dear friend, the Rev. John host, Dr. Bachman. What better present from Bachman, whom he met in 1831. Bachman a houseguest? then was already a respected naturalist and scientist. He would found Newberry College and he and Audubon would go on to collaborate on the three-volume Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which is the superb mammal complement to Birds of America. The friendship between the families was even closer after Audubon's two sons married the two charming Bachman daughters. It speaks well of Dr. Bachman that he was simply enchanted by these exotic gifts. He already had quite an interesting menagerie of species, alive and not alive, meandering about his property and strewn about his home. Lacking the Key's mangroves, the Heron pair "betook themselves to roosting in a beautiful arbour in his garden; where at night they looked with their pure white plumage like beings of another world." On April 24, 1832, Audubon and his expedition companions landed on Indian Key in the Well, they were of another world … a very upper Florida Keys. Indian Key is again an un- hungry avian world.