MARK HEDDEN – KEY WEST’S LEGENDARY BIRD EXPERT & BULL FIGHTER
This week Britt Myers sat down with the legendary Mark Hedden. Mark is a photographer, writer, and semi-professional birdwatcher. He has lived in Key West for more...
TURKEY VULTURES: NATURE’S NECESSARY FREAK SHOW
The highway was jammed, though not, as Springsteen said, with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Mostly it was dump trucks, RVs and rental Mustangs...
WILD THINGS: DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH AGED COCKATOOS & ALBATROSSES
I went down a weird internet rabbit hole the other day, trying to ascertain whether a certain Australian cockatoo was dead or alive. The sulphur-crested cockatoo in...
WILD THINGS: ELLEN & THE PELICAN
Ellen Westbrook and I were riding our bikes around the edge of Old Town, along the water, counting every damn bird we saw – every mockingbird, every...
WILD THINGS: WAITING ON A MISGUIDED HAWK
It is an odd thing, sitting around, waiting for a bird to poop, but that’s exactly what I was doing — and had been doing for the...
WILD THINGS: EXQUISITELY STRANGE AMERICAN FLAMINGO
It is surprisingly difficult to see a flamingo in Florida, at least a wild one. We get flamingos in the Florida Keys, specifically American flamingos, but not...
WILD THINGS: BROAD NOTIONS ABOUT BROAD-WINGED HAWKS
I heard my first broad-winged hawk before I saw it. For a long time – weeks, months – I could not figure out what it was.
It was...
WILD THINGS: HIGH TIME TO GET TO THE SEA
You don’t think of Herman Melville as a funny guy, but he was. Darkly so. There’s an oft-quoted paragraph in “Moby Dick” where he talked about being...
WILD THINGS: ADVENTURES WITH IMPROPERLY COLORED BIRDS
When I first pulled up I thought I was seeing a half-dozen young roseate spoonbills on the side road that parallels the runway at Marathon airport. It...
WILD THINGS: KEEPING UP WITH THE PELICANS
I was on my way back from the mainland. Mostly I’d been wondering exactly how many empty cruisers the sheriff’s office had parked on the side of...
