WILD THINGS: WAYWARD PIRATES FROM FOREIGN LANDS
I guess I’ve seen flycatchers that you could call swashbuckling. The gray kingbirds that will be returning over the next few weeks to stake out their territories...
WILD THINGS: THERE AREN’T ENOUGH WORDS FOR BLUE
Indigo buntings don’t have a particularly distinctive shape. They’re round little things about the height and weight of a pack of cigarettes with a modest but sturdy...
WILD THINGS: TURKEY VULTURES AND THE SWEET SPOT FOR STINK
The turkey vulture swooped low over the moat at Fort Zach, and I raised my camera because I knew it was going to shoot back up again...
WILD THINGS: A CATEGORY 5 MEGA-RARITY
I’d just watched three or four videos about how to properly tape drop handlebars on a bicycle, which apparently gets really tricky around the brake levers.
I felt...
WILD THINGS: HAWKS & CHICKENS, PREDATORS & PREY
It is difficult, as a birder, to think about chickens – or at least to know how to think about chickens properly. Is there a right way...
WILD THINGS: THE ART OF LISTENING
Elizabeth Bishop most likely started her poem “Florida” before she ever came to Key West, when she’d only visited the Gulf Coast. She probably finished it some...
Wild Things: One of nature’s greatest malcontents
The belted kingfisher was making a series of runs down the moat at Fort Zach, complaining pretty much every time it flapped along the outside of the...
WILD THINGS: SAW-BILLED DUCKS & LONG-TERM FRIENDSHIPS
My friend Clark called me a little while back and I missed it. When I returned the call half an hour later, he said, “Never mind. I...
WILD THINGS: THE MECHANICS OF GRACE
Fort Zach was packed, flip-flops and burnt shoulders everywhere, even on a chilly day, by Keys standards. I start-stopped my way carefully through the first two parking...
WILD THINGS: BIRDS ON WIRES
We ran into our friend Pat Kennedy the other day while waiting for a table at the Hogfish. And because we were all just sitting there, passing...
