Mary Patrick Green Acres April 7, 2019

album

Garret Mountain April 6, 2019

album

missing the obvious

A little friendly criticism taken to heart

Got me to reconsider the impact of humans

If your point of view looks from a bird's eye

At habitat seeing loss but also seeing gains.

Nature preserves set aside on compromised land

Eventually recovering returning to a natural state

Creating an incidental island of habitat suitable for wildlife

That people can cultivate to encourage to thrive.

However it's the developed terrain that matters most

Not intended as habitat but recognized as such

When feathered wings with brains examine it

Finding food and nesting sites there for the taking.

Here in South Florida what was swamp has been replaced

Excavating a landscape leaving it littered with borrow pits

To mound up the margins as foundation to build upon

Catching water in the pits as pond or lake soon colonized.

Behind this house the little lake attracts the birds

Gallinules, spoonbills storks, ibises, limpkins, ducks all feeding

Cormorants, grebes, herons, egrets,, anhinga, osprey and eagles fishing

With squawking flocks of seagulls swooping down to drink and bathe.

As I watch them every day how could I miss the obvious

The abundance of these birds depends on all the pits

Constructed for real estate business but nevertheless

These birds have found a happy home here.

There are so many power lines and poles and structures

It seems especially in parks that mar the view I think

But the birds decide we are providing good places for nests

Caring not at all about my pristine nature esthetics.

For the birds that lived in the original swampland

The transformation of this place was a catastrophe

No doubt killing off most of the native species

Even while creating opportunity in a new ecosystem.

This is the story everywhere I think in a changing world

Some species will adapt and expand their range

Others will come to the end of their time to exist

People we hope will be among the former and survive.

Garden to Taylor to Chesnut March 30-31, 2019

album

for the birds

Looking around noticing movement

Seeing something alive there fluttering

Watching carefully to discern the details

That's how birders walk in the woods.

I take photos hoping to catch the moment

Beautiful feathers displayed in good light

Perched as if posed among the lovely leaves

A glimpse of perfection seen for a second or two.

If you go to the same place again and again

Each time is different what you will find

An almost magical unexpected surprise awaits

Rewarding the ones with eyes and ears open.

Sometimes in spring when songs are in the air

You may watch the courtship dancers making mate choices

You may see hidden away nests under construction

You may hear the nestling chicks calling to their parents.

Sometimes only the most common sightings can be found

The ones we call the loyal birds that stay all year round

Overlooked perhaps taken for granted and ignored

Though no less special if you trouble to study them.

Sometimes the migrants passing through delight us

Putting on a show appearing everywhere at once

Then all too soon disappearing leaving us behind

Unless we feel the pull and follow them where they go.

Birds are wary keeping their distance from us

Successful survivors evolved from the dinosaurs

Inhabitants of this world long before we humans

Arrived bringing habitat loss and climate change.

There are species in decline but not all is lost

As many are adapting to the Anthropocene

Finding food and nest sites in urban environs

Protected and helped by their many defenders.

Honeymoon Island March 29, 2019

album

Brooker Creek March 28, 2019

album