BIRD WATCHERS DELIGHT IN RARE FLAMINGO SIGHTING ON GRASSY KEY
Florida has a tetchy relationship with flamingos. A few centuries ago, before the state had been developed, they were common in South Florida and the Keys, as...
WILD THINGS: PRIZED BOOBIES & BOOBY PRIZES
It was late in the day and Kevin Christman was leaving the Keys, not for the weekend, but for good – boxes packed, small dog in his...
FLAMINGO FOMO AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
This is the thing: I’ve seen American flamingos before. At least a dozen times in the U.S., maybe two dozen times, sometimes in groups, sometimes as solo...
WILD THINGS COLUMN: ‘TOP OF THE WORLD, LOOKING DOWN ON CREATION’
It was weird. The last time I was on Mount Wachusett in northern Massachusetts I was 8, riding the chairlift alone. It was spring break and my...
BIRDS DON’T CARE WHAT YOU CALL THEM, BUT IT STILL MATTERS
Avian nomenclature generally does not rate a lot of attention – or any attention, really – in the mainstream media. At least it didn’t until last week,...
WILD THINGS: DON’T FEAR THE QUACKER
Ducks scare me.
Some people might be tempted to get Freudian about this, and think it has to do with male ducks’ often outsized corkscrew genitalia, and the...
WILD THINGS: VULTURES VS. ACTS OF GOD
I bounced off of Tom McGuane’s novel “Panama” the first couple times I tried to read it. It seemed arrhythmic, and fraught with a preternatural diction that...
WILD THINGS: ASK THE BIRD GEEK — THE LONG LEGS AND BIRD POOP EDITION
What’s the difference between a heron and an egret? — KK on BPK
The Old High German word for heron was heiger, their name for the long-necked, long-legged...
WILD THINGS: IT’S THE EYE OF THE IBIS
The first thing you notice about a white Ibis is the bill, the long, sloping one that drops away from the face like the start of a...
WILD THINGS: A TALE OF TWO DOVES
The doves had been giving me the hairy eyeball all afternoon. Though with doves not having hair, I guess I should say they were giving me the...
