An eaglet hatched at the active bald eagle nest along Bayshore Drive in North Fort Myers on Saturday afternoon with a second egg being watched.The official hatch time for the eaglet named E24 was 4:01 p.m.The new eaglet is the offspring of mated pair F23 (short for Female 2023) and M15 (short for Male 2015).A pip, or initial crack, was confirmed Sunday in the nest's second egg.

The Black Skimmer is a very unusual shorebird – in part because of its exceptionally long, knife-like lower bill and much shorter, slightly-curved upper bill. The knife-like lower bill isn’t for cutting, but for slicing through calm surface waters near shore and in shallow ponds and lakes. When the lower bill strikes a small fish, the fish slides up the bill and the upper bill clamps down on it.

Wild Turkeys are birds that most of us know on sight because of their large size, habit of foraging in groups in relatively open areas, and the display of a male with his tail held up and fanned. Of course we know them because of their prominence at our holiday dinner tables – and in holiday advertising -- especially at Thanksgiving. Males are larger than females – even when not “puffed up” and displaying. Males also have iridescent plumage, multiple colors on their mostly bare head and neck, and a prominent fleshy structure called a snood on the forehead that becomes enlarged and more colorful during interactions. Females are smaller, have duller, non-iridescent plumage, only a blue-gray head and neck, and a smaller, less colorful snood. Studies suggest that females prefer males with longer snoods and that the snood may indicate a resistance to some diseases.In this week’s Wild Things we’ll talk a bit about the behavior and ecology of Wild Turkeys, the origins of their name, and our relationship with them.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is a very unusual woodpecker with distinct male, female, and juvenile plumages as shown in the accompanying photos. Adult males have a red throat, a black bib, and a slightly yellow-tinted breast; adult females have a white throat, black bib, and yellow-tinted breast. Juveniles have a gray throat and breast for much of their first year.

Gray Squirrels are common in cities and towns across eastern North America and made their way across the Great Plains and all the way to California as a result of establishment of cities and towns built and planted with trees. Some squirrels no doubt made the move on their own – well-meaning humans who enjoyed their presence introduced others. The antics of squirrels just seemed to belong in the neighborhood.

Halloween is a holiday that brings to mind creatures of the night such as bats and many spiders. These nocturnal creatures are ones we have some unease about because we rarely see them, encounter them by surprise in the dark, and often have little understanding of their role in nature. We often misinterpret their behavior and they sometimes leave us with a sense of fear of what they might do to us. Yes, tropical American vampire bats drink blood and in doing so can transmit disease to its victims. North American and most other bats are insect eaters that provide an important service in consuming mosquitos that can transmit diseases to the animals they bite. Most bats also consume large numbers of moths and other insects that feed on plants that our livestock or we depend on.

Orb-weaving spiders are those spiders that create webs in which flying or falling insects are captured. Many, such as the Banded Garden Spider, the Golden-silk Orb-weaver, and the tiny Orchard Spider are active during the day, some, such as the Tropical Orb Weaver are primarily active at night. Most create a new web each day. If you have a wooded area, you can often go out shortly after dark with a flashlight and find Tropical Orb-weavers as they begin to create their web for the evening. By morning the web is gone and the Tropical Orb-weaver is in hiding among dense vegetation.

Our Black and Turkey vultures are common sights in Florida skies.An adult Black Vulture on the left and a juvenile on the right. Note the black colors, the wrinkled head of the adult, and the tiny feathers and lack of wrinkles on the head of the juvenile.

Woodpeckers are easily recognized as they excavate nest and roost cavities and retrieve food from their chosen habitats and Florida has recently been home to at least least nine species – including the likely extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker, the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker, and the winter-resident only Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Each species has (or had) its own unique niche – the habitat where each lives and how they use it: the foods they depend on, and the dimensions and locations of their nest and roost cavities.

Hurricanes can be disastrous and Florida sticks out like a sore thumb directly in the path of many hurricanes. It’s the heat of the sun and curvature and spinning of the Earth on its axis that initiate the movement of air over ocean and land. And its summer heat that warms surface water that creates the humid air and water-laden clouds that come with a hurricane. The juxtaposition of Florida’s land mass and the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico – the northern end of which is in a subtropical climate – makes us a target for hurricanes – many of which move north through the Gulf of Mexico, feeding on the warm waters there.