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...
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,...
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...
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...
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,...
ASK THE BIRD GEEK: ARE BIRDS REALLY JUST FANCY, LITTLE DINOSAURS?
Are birds really just fancy little dinosaurs? — Bi-Residential Barry
Yes! Yes, they are.
I started to write about how all the birds we know can be traced to one...
WILD THINGS: HEARING THE WORDS, BUT NOT KNOWING THE SONG
Mnemonics are mental hacks designed to help us remember things. ROY G BIV. Every Good Boy Does Fine. King Phillip Came Over For Great Spaghetti. SPLUNGE*.
Bird books...
WILD THINGS: GLIDING INTO THE UNEXPECTED
We saw the fake Southernmost Point marker in Satellite Beach, Florida, 437 miles from Cuba, 347 miles north of the real one. It was in front of...
WILD THINGS: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE GRAY GHOST
I was not expecting the Gray Ghost, not expecting it to come up the way it did over my shoulder, not expecting it to move on ahead...
WILD THINGS: OPOSSUM, MY POSSUM
There comes a time in every person’s life when he/she/they must take a hard, unsentimental look at their past. They must peer fearlessly into the dark corners,...
