Each shape is more-or-less see through and yet with a stained-glass pattern that hints at the promised rainbows. Red, blue, yellow and green flirt across the surface of the decals as I view them from different angles. ...
It was the new moon and it was dark, the type of blackness one never sees in the city. I squinted at the dirt road glowing in my headlights, hoping to spot a snake soaking in the last warmth of the day, or perhaps a...
I wanted to visit Dry Tortugas National Park long before I understood what or where it was. It sounded exciting - a tropical island far removed from the rest of the Florida Keys and an oasis for marine and bird life. It sounded like my...
Our goal was to see 100 bird species in and around Everglades National Park by the end of the day - The Fifth Everglades Century Day by a core team of Floridians and Marylanders. We’d succeeded on our last venture, eking out a couple of...
I couldn’t get over how dense and sprawling Paris was as I stared down from the Eiffel Tower at the maze of buildings packed onto Medieval-sized streets below. It was Baron Haussmann under Napoleon III who widened some of the streets to create today’s grand...
Titchwell, I was told by the pair of local birders I’d met while watching spoonbill courtship (see my previous blog), was THE place to ‘twitch’ (birdwatch) along the Norfolk Coast. Given the parking lot was filled with people carrying binoculars and spotting scopes, it was...
Marsh Harrier in flight.
A pile of whipped cream and strawberries sat before me as word rippled through lunch at the lovely Victoria Inn restaurant that a pair of Eurasian spoonbills was courting at one of the neighboring bird blinds. I shoveled my ‘Eton Mess’ into...
Oystercatchers
Mud flats stretched before me for what seemed like miles. Waves lapped at one far off edge, but seemed too distant to threaten the clusters of water birds milling about. I pulled my hood tight against the nipping winds and stared at the ground as...
It’s been about a year since I relocated from my proven wildlife-friendly yard in Key Biscayne to a new home in Coconut Grove. I embraced the challenge of incorporating as many of the recommendations included in my Attracting Birds to South Florida Gardens book as...