August 23, 2011 Green Roof Biodiversity, Rooftop Garden, Breaking Ground Contracting, Jacksonville - Kevin Songer - Picasa Web Albums

August 23, 2011 Green Roof Biodiversity, Rooftop Garden, Breaking Ground Contracting, Jacksonville - Kevin Songer - Picasa Web Albums

Gulf Fritillary on the Green ROof

Check out these photographs from the Breaking Ground Green Roof yesterday afternoon. The Green Roof always looks different at various times of the day, morning, noon and evening.

The Brazilian Agouti

The Brazilian Agouti, Dasyprocta leporina, is a South American agouti species from the Dasyprotidae family. It is also called "red-rumped", "orange-rumped" or the "golden-rumped" agouti. It lives in a wide variety of habitats as long as there is water and dense plant growth.These habitats may include gardens and crop fields. It is also found in the rainforests or other forests of Brazil and northward.

photo: Os Roedores

Campo de Santana, a park at the busy urban center of Rio de Janeiro holds a population of more than a thousand agoutis among other small animals.

Tijuca Forest, world's largest urban forest, also in Rio, is the home of a great range of animal species; nevertheless, agoutis hadn't been seen there for a long time. For this reason, since 2010, a group biologists from Tijuca Forest have been working on the readaptation of some "very urban" Brazilian agoutis to the forest, a much "less urban" habitat.

Read This is my Brazilian Agouti fact sheet! @ The Daniel's Animal Facts Blog.

The Resilient Pitangus Sulphuratus

Do you recognize this proud feathered fellow on the left? If you tell me you've never seen such bird, and you live or have been to somewhere on this Planet, from the tropics to the equator lines, I will tell you that there is a strong possibility that at least one of this type has already seen you.

photo by Luis A. Florit

Pitangus sulphuratus, the bird's scientific name, derives from pitanga (surinam cherry) fruit and from its sulfur yellow belly color. It has a popular and onomatopoeic name in different languages and countries because of its exuberant BEE-tee-WEE call; in Portuguese: bem-te-vi (I saw you well), in Spanish: bien-te-veo (I see you well); in French: qu'est ce (what is...), in German: Schwefeltyrann (sulfur tyrant), in Japanese, in Russian and so on....Of course, in English, it's the great kiskadee.

photo by Flávio Cruvinel

The great kiskadee is a conspicuous bird. It is almost omnivorous and hunts like a shrike, or flycatcher, waiting on an open perch high in a tree to sally out to catch insects in flight, or to pounce upon rodents and similar small vertebrates. It will also take prey and some fruit from vegetation by gleaning and jumping for it or ripping it off in mid-hover, and occasionally dives for fish or tedpoles in shallow water; making it one of the few fishing passerines.

photos: Luiz Álvaro & Flavio Cruvinel

This alert and aggressive bird uses its strong

and maneuverable flight as a good effect when it feels annoyed by raptors. Even much larger birds are attacked by the great kiskadee; usually by diving down or zooming straight at them while they are in mid-air.

photo by Flávio Cruvinel

The great kiskadee is commonly used in the control
of invasive species and is of large importance for
sowing seeds in urban areas.

mobbing a hawk - Wikipedia

The bem-te-vi is the most popular bird in Brazil. Maybe all along Latin America, as well; for it can be seen in most biomes and urban sites. Also, its amazing adaptability seems to be an infinite source for scientists.

I personally have good experiences with bem-te-vis. One of them is for their having killed my problems with my circardian cycle.

Daylight saving time ended yesterday in many states of Brazil, and friends were commenting on the delight of an extra hour and how the change in the chronological clock always affects their biological ones. I know nothing about this anymore. Whether it is part of my karma or not, in the dense urban environment where I happen to live; no matter the season, disregarding the height of my window, from where everyday there's a stubborn 'dude' with a yellow belly, blowing his throat loudly, in mornings' first light. There he goes: bem-te-vi, bem-te-vi. The wise feathered fellow knows I like to watch the sunrise.....

Le Mur de la Treille, Genève

Les vieux murs en pierres constituent un habitat exceptionnel et indispensable à la vie de nombreux animaux, en particulier les reptiles et les invertébrés, ainsi qu'à de nombreux champignons, lichens, mousses et plantes à fleurs.
En 2010  "Murs urbains et biodiversité" une compétition amicale organisée entre chercheurs et naturalistes de la Swiss Systematics Society (SSS) dans plusieurs villes de Suisse avait pour but de répertorier les divers organismes associés à un mur de pierre en milieu urbain.

Photo courtesy of http://www.cri.ch/

Et c'est la Ville de Genève qui à reçu le premier prix du concours pour le Mur de la Treille
Pas moins de 149 espèces de mousses, lichens, papillons, plantes à fleur, mollusques, acariens, oiseaux et autres scarabées ont été répertoriés.
Parmi ces espèces, les scientifiques ont même identifié une espèce de papillon nocturne et une mouche qui n'avaient encore jamais été signalée sur le territoire genevois!
Le papillon Klimeschiopsis kiningerella (Duponchel). Le petit nouveau dans la faune genevoise mesure 13 mm. Que fait-il là? Mystère. «On ne connaît pas encore l’identité de sa plante hôte», indique Bernard Landry, spécialiste des lépidoptères.
Autre découverte surprenante: un diptère nommé Stevenia deceptoria (Loew). La mouche a été observée pour la première fois dans le canton. (source)





Ces murs anciens constituent des refuges imprtants pour la faune et la flore en mileu urbain sont malheureusement menacés et en voie de disparition. En effet, les réfections menées au nom de la modernisation, du "propre en ordre" et de l'embellissement entraînent un ravalement des vieux murs et par conséquent la disparition des précieuses anfractuosités.
Ces dernières constituent, en effet, l'un des facteurs primordiaux permettant le développement et la présence conséquente d'une faune et d'une végétation riches en espèces.

Voici le rapport détaillé de la SSS (Swiss Systematics Society) avec les listes de toutes les espèces trouvées sur les différents murs participants (Berne, Génève, Lausanne et Neuchâtel)

And here's a english translation of the survey on Dusty's Blog