WILD THINGS: SHORT WALKS ON LONG PIERS AND THE START OF SOMETHING
I was walking the dog down Reynolds Street, past the Casa Marina, when the dog started pulling for the pier. I try to give...
WILD THINGS: A TRIO OF WAYWARD CHICKS
Ellen Westbrook texted me two photos from over at the Key West Wildlife Center, where she volunteers on the regular. The first was a...
WILD THINGS: MURMURS AND SUCH
Up on Boca Chica Beach the other day, the sargassum was teeming with a diverse legion of shorebirds – sandpipers, dowitchers, willets, turnstones and...
WILD THINGS: YOU CAN’T SEE EVERYTHING
Nine o’clock isn’t all that early, but there was still enough humidity in the air to fog the lenses of my binoculars and camera...
WILD THINGS: CARDINAL VIRTUES AND NUMBERS
In empirical terms, the male northern cardinal is a spectacular bird. Flaming red with a punker’s crest on top of its head, a black...
WILD THINGS: THE FLAMINGO VORTEX
The flamingo was in the ugliest part of the pond. Out in the middle, where it was probably about a foot deep, the surface...
WILD THINGS: A GUIDE TO BIRDING GUIDES, SORT OF
I’m old school, at least as far as field guides to birds go. I prefer a book to an app, but it’s a qualified...
WILD THINGS: NIGHT HERONS AT THE DINER
I didn’t flush up the yellow-crowned night heron. The Key deer did.
But me slowing down on Watson Boulevard to get a better look at...
WILD THINGS: DEVIL BIRDS — NOT ALL THAT BAD
The thing I like most about anhingas is their long pointy bill. It’s somewhat stabby looking, possibly because it is built for stabbing.
Non-birders, and...
WILD THINGS: THE LOWDOWN ON THE DOWN-LOWS OF RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS
Red-winged blackbirds vexed me when I first started birding. Not the males. They're easy. They have that sleek all-black plumage, accented by those nominate...
