I recently awoke to the sounds of screaming. Despite my quickened pulse, I suspected an animal. This was, after all, my Maryland hurricane season home, a wooded property left to the wildlife most of the year. The screams were piercing as I gently slid the...
Leatherback sea turtles were on my mind as I pulled into Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge’s beach-side parking lot. My quest for nesting sea turtles to photograph for my Wild Florida book had begun several weeks prior, before summer settled in. I knew where to find Florida’s...
It was still dark when we gathered in the small office. Dressed in long-pants and long-sleeves with steaming coffee mugs in hand and headlamps shining from our foreheads, we headed to the boat ramp. In an early morning daze, we talked in unnecessarily hushed tones...
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...
Let’s face it, birders can be a serious bunch. There are both written and unspoken rules that garner more than just glares if broken - God forbid you point or wear white boots. I’m pretty sure laughter is generally frowned upon as well. Yet it...
Bold blue and yellow flowers, as well as delicate pink and purple, peeked through brown grass. South Florida’s native blueberry offered small but luscious fruits. Young, new leaves promised renewal of a cowhorn orchid that was thought to have been lost to the previous year’s wildfire....
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...
My first post-Hurricane Irma trip to the Keys was in early December. There were still a few signs of the storm in Miami - walls crumbled by giant trees whose roots had gathered the surrounding earth and raised it to the sky in their sinking;...
I’m not sure what caused me to glance up at that moment, nor how I noticed the writhing gray amidst the foliage but it stopped me in my tracks. I watched as tiny wings coated in fluff beat vigorously, but the bird went nowhere. Talons...