Flora and fauna: the Moorhen (Gallinula Chloropus)

Conversation with a mother and her young daughter at the canalside wooden railing in Brewer Park recently turned to a small black bird with a bright red crested beak.

It seems lots of folks think of this bird as some kind of duck, though most realize its beak doesn't look much like a duck's bill and that there's something different about this waterbird. And, they're right.

A migratory bird that frequents our Broad Canal this time of year, this bird is called the Florida Moorhen (also referred to as "Common Moorhen," or Gallinule after the scientific name Gallinula Chloropus).

In fact, the Moorhen is a member of the "Rail" family ("Coots" also belong to this family of birds) and although it shares wetlands and moorlands habitat with ducks, appears to swim similarly to a duck and also feeds on grasses, leaves, small insects and snails, there are two differentiating characteristics that are readily visible.

The first can be seen while the birds are swimming in the water -- they clearly don't have a duck's bill, but rather a narrow, pointed yellow beak topped by a bright tred frontal crest. Second, once out of the water, their yellow legs and feet are easily distinguished from ducks' webbed feet by their four long toes. The lack of webbing helps moorhens from getting tangled in grasses and weeds when paddling and stepping about in shallow wetlands.

Moorhens can be heard from a distance, their low grunts turning to sharp “kurr’uk” calls if a human or predator gets too close to them or their springtime nests under low scrub along the shoreline. The local Florida Gallinule variety also can be found in the Antilles island chain in the Caribbean, from Cuba to Jamaica and Haiti, and is therefore also sometimes called the Antillean Common Moorhen.

Lots more about the Moorhen or Gallinule is available online here and here.

And, if you're interested in birds, don't forget that we're extremely fortunate to have in South Miami the offices of the Tropical Audubon Society, located at the Doc Thomas House, a county-designated historic site, on three acres of subtropical land at 5530 Sunset Drive.

South Miami pledges carbon-neutrality for city

South Miami Vice-Mayor Brian Beasley and newly-elected Commissioner Valerie Newman joined this week with Mayor Horace Feliu to pass by a 3/2 vote a Resolution that will make the City "carbon-neutral" by the year 2030.

Resolution No. 09-09-12818, adopted at the Commission's Jan. 20th meeting, reads:

A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF SOUTH MIAMI, FLORIDA ADOPTING A PROPOSED WORK PROGRAM PREPARED BY THE GREEN TASK FORCE WHICH WILL RESULT IN THE CITY OF SOUTH MIAMI BECOMING CARBON-NEUTRAL BY 2030; PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

Backed up by six initiatives recommended by the city's Green Task Force, the Resolution is in keeping with the State of Florida guidelines for municipalities to adopt the year 2030 as a date for becoming carbon-neutral.

Congratulations to our commissioners on this first step toward making South Miami "The GREEN City of Pleasant Living"!

Flora and fauna: the Australian Pines (Casuarina glauca)

The Cambridge Lawns neighborhood is distinguished by the signature evergreen trees that line the canal between Brewer Park and SW 62nd Avenue, visible from all approaches to the neighbhorhood. This graceful shade tree, growing to a height of as much as 70 feet and with long branches that sway in the wind, is commonly called the Australian Pine (also, "She-Oak"), while its scientific name is Casuarina -- so-called because its foliage was thought to resemble the feathers of the cassowary bird of the tree's native Australia.

Introduced to Florida before 1924, in recent years, the Casuarinas have been the target of criticism, chiefly it seems because they're "non-native" and considered "invasive" and also because they're susceptible to damage from high winds, presenting a potential storm hazard in hurricane season. Both both the non-native and storm-hazard charges can be levied against any number of other large tree species in Miami, including the voluminous tropical almonds that grow profusely on Cambridge Lawns properties and along both sides of the canal.

For some reason, however, the Casuarinas are singled out for all the "bad press," with some overlooking their valuable role as habitat for the neighborhood's abundant animal and bird life.

There are actually three types of Casuarina in South Florida and the trees along the Broad Canal are the seedless Casuarina glauca, reproducing by shooting up suckers from around its base -- the reason they were originally planted along Miami-Dade drainage canals to help stabilize the soil, which is certainly the case along Broad Canal. That puts to rest the myth that these trees "spread their seeds" to other Miami-Dade waterways by dropping them into the canal, occasionally given as a pretext for wholesale felling of large stands of the trees.

There's another prevalent myth about the trees: that the Casuarina "needles" deposit a chemical in the soil that keeps competing plants from growing. Again, not true. More likely is a simpler explanation that ground cover and shrubs tend to be crowded out by the trees’ dense shade and extensive roots.

Even so, that doesn't seem to be the case along Broad Canal. As a walk along SW 57 Drive and SW 58 Street over to Brewer Park demonstrates, there are no shortage of other trees growing side-by-wide with the Australian Pines, including native Gumbo Limbo, a few native Mahogany trees and the ever-present almonds.

As for the birds, a glance upward into the branches of the trees any evening shows that the native and non-native species alike simply love the Casuarinas that line the Broad Canal and that without them the birdlife in Cambridge Lawns would be far less abundant than it is today.

Other links of interest:
Tropical Audubon Society
TREEmendous Miami
Miami-Dade 'Adopt a Tree'

Note: This is the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series about the trees and birdlife of the Cambridge Lawns neighborhood, particularly along and around the Broad Canal.

Explore the M-Path bike-ped link through South Miami

Cambridge Lawns bicycle enthusiasts interested in linking up to the "M-Path" bike route that runs along US1 from Pinecrest through South Miami and Coral Gables to Brickell, might want to attend the upcoming Explore the M-Path slide talk being given by Erik Tullberg, member of the Miami-Dade Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee and secretary of the Green Mobility Network.

For details, contact the Green Mobility Network through their site. Lots more M-Path news and views at The M-Path to Enlightenment blog, which has great links to other bicycle mobility sites for Miami-Dade. We've linked to the Green Mobility Network under "Environment" on the right-hand column of Cambridge Lawns.

Don't forget! Special election Tuesday Jan. 13th at SoMi City Hall

Tuesday Jan. 13th is your chance to make your voice heard and cast a vote to fill the vacant seat on the South Miami City Commission.

The polling place is South Miami City Hall and the polls are open all day long from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Be sure to cast your vote for the candidate of your choice: Valerie Newman, Javier Baños, Shawn Crews, Frank Cuzzocrea or Levy Kelly.

Cambridge Lawns has received doorknob fliers and door-to-door visits from several of the candidates, yard signs have appeared in the last week and cable Channel 77 has been running the two public debates among the candidates that took place on Jan. 2nd and Jan. 5th.

Official notice of the election has been posted at the City's website.

New recycling carts, curbside pickup schedule for Cambridge Lawns

Miami-Dade County delivered new recycling carts to the Cambridge Lawns neighborhood this past weekend, replacing the green and blue recyling bins with one large cart on wheels, now picked up every other Monday starting this past Monday Jan. 5th (next pickup, Monday Jan. 19th).

The new carts are not quite the bright-blue pictured here, but rather a very dark blue -- actually a little easier on the eye.

Good news is that they've given us a "one-stop-shop" approach, with all recyclables going into one cart, and the containers have lids -- keeping pesky critters from messing about and stopping spillover from the previously open bins. And the carts are large enough so that they should hold everything gathered over a two week period -- and there's an option to go for a larger size if you're a big user of all the items eligible for recycling.

And, what might those be? Well, distributed with the new carts were fliers and reminder labels to past onto the lid of the carts that give clear indications of what items are and are not eligible for recycling.

It's "Yes" to paper products, collapsed cardboard, narrow-necked plastic containers, drink and juice cartons, glass and metal food and beverage containers. No batteries, chemicals, medical waste and pharmaceuticals, appliances, electronics or household garbage.

The County has a web page here with detailed information. Of course, as of this posting the video demo link is not working and the really nice tool they've developed to look up your recycling day isn't yet fully functional.

But, hey ... what's important is that they seem to be serious about recycling. And, by the way, check out their Quick Facts About Recycling flier -- interesting tid-bits on the positive impact of going green, especially the one on recycling all the phone books in America each year and saving 650,000 tons of paper per annum!

Don't forget! Special Jan. 13th election for City Commission seat

Don't forget the Jan. 13th special election called by the City of South Miami, giving you a chance to make your voice heard and cast a vote to fill the seat on the South Miami City Commission left vacant by the resignation of commissioner Randy Wiscombe.

Last night marked an interesting public debate on the issues among four of the five candidates running for the vacant seat.

Present at a two-hour evening forum hosted by the South Miami Homeowners Association at the Elks Lodge were candidates Valerie Newman, Javier Banos, Frank Cuzzocrea and Shawn Crews; candidate Levy Kelly was not present.

Official notice of the election has been posted at the City's website.

News reports about the election can be read online at the Miami Herald website:
» Commission candidates detail plans for South Miami

» South Miami to televise city commission debates

The second of the two debates will be hosted Monday by the Chamber South and, as noted in the above Herald article, you'll be able to watch the debates on Channel 77 between now and election day to see which of the candidates you think should get your vote!

New era for Cambridge Lawns website

We're opening a new era for the Cambridge Lawns website, re-launching with this post after quite a long time in dormant mode. We were here ... just not posting!

Now, it's time to gear up the website as there's more than a little going on in our community again. One of the things we've done is to add some new functionality through a "Share This" widget you'll see at the bottom of each post, allowing you to share the post with your own network of friends, family, colleagues or neighbors via a wide variety of social networking or online bookmarking sites. You're also able to e-mail the post to anyone using the "Share This" icon below -- just choose the "email" tab when the sharing box pops up.

So, sit back and enjoy ... or better yet, don't sit back but do get up off your chair and go for a walk around our beautiful neighborhood. See the trees, enjoy the varied bird life, spot an occasional iguana and watch the turtles and other waterlife diving into the deep of the Broad Canal ...