Wild Things
WILD THINGS: THE SECRET LIVES OF YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOOS
It would be tough to be a yellow-billed cuckoo in the Florida Keys if you viewed yourself through the eyes of a birdwatcher, because, well, you’d always just be...
Wild Things
WILD THINGS: NOTES ON A NEAR-HURRICANE
Winslow Homer painted two watercolors on his first trip to Key West in 1895. The first was a relatively demure study of a coconut palm. There was nothing wrong...
Wild Things
WILD THINGS COLUMN: AN IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST
In the proper scheme of things we, as humans, are not supposed to occupy intimate space with a bird like a Cory’s shearwater. Shearwaters are pelagic birds, designed to...
Wildlife
A GRAVEL ROOF AND SOME SHADE — THE LEAST WE CAN DO FOR LEAST TERNS
Least terns never seem substantial enough to exist in the real world. The rational part of my brain knows they’re made of flesh and blood and feathers like all...
Columns
WILD THINGS: THE AFTERNOON THAT HASN’T ENDED
It was mid June, hot as Hades and I was on the sidewalk outside of Harpoon Harry’s after lunch.
This was three years ago.
The heat was that all-encompassing, shirt-soaking, spirit-abusing...
Wild Things
WILD THINGS: 2 SCENES FROM A BREEDING SEASON
She flew in and landed atop the fence, although it wasn’t immediately clear that she was a she. Mourning doves are sexually monomorphic, meaning both genders look the same,...