Me and My Shadow

Last week, a favorite (yes, we do have them) former student of mine called me with a request.
She had a college photojournalism assignment that involved "shadowing" a character around and documenting ... a "typical day in the life of ...".

Could she shadow me?

I told her, I was not doing anything exciting that day ... a haircut, a later than normal blog post 'cause of the haircut, Bear wrestlin', and maybe a collecting trip out to Cedar Key to get a head start on stocking my classroom aquariums.

She was interested anyway and we agreed to meet after the haircut.

At the house she photographed away while I blogged, teased Bear, made and ate a turkey sandwich, breathed, etc. Eventually it was time to head out to Cedar Key for the collecting.
She perched herself on a steeply sloping creek bank and photographed me while I waded the muddy creek and tossed the castnet in search of my favorite ectotherms, ... fish.
I love fish the way Zick loves birds, so I was pretty much in heaven as the net brought up a nice variety of euryhaline fishes.

Here are some items from that trip.

A young mullet. We call these finger mullet, because ... I don't really have to explain that name do I?

This one has great potential. At this size, she could feed a trout, redfish, flounder, tern, heron, egret, ... the list goes on and on. In a few months, she could feed you or me, pelicans, bigger fish, dolphins, ospreys, that list goes on and on too.
If she is incredibly lucky, she may dart, dash, and leap enough to grow fat with roe and make us all more finger mullet, but her odds are long ... as long as the list of predators who love them.


A female Sailfin Molly. Isn't she a beauty? And she's not even dressed up compared to her beau, who is waaaaay down at the bottom of this post. Sailfin mollies are native to Florida, not some runaway fish store type molly. The males get pretty big, I still can see one I dipped up in a ditch as a kid, I swear it was over 6 inches long.
Mollies are so amazingly adapted to coastal life. You can find them in fresh water, salt water, and everything in between. I checked the salinity of the water they were in and it was almost full strength seawater, but you could just as easily run into this fish in a clear, spring fed creek.

The toughest fishes in the creek though, are the killifish clan.

A long nose killifish in the hand is worth two in the water ... if you are going flounder fishing and need a bait that flounder can't resist. The many different killifish you find in coastal creeks are known as mudminnows to fishermen seeking them as bait.
It's not flattering, but it's actually a great common name because these fish will duck under the mud to avoid predatory birds and they are often swimming in water barely shallow enough to float them ... over muddy marsh bottoms.
And tough? I once stuck a thermometer into a small sink-sized puddle of saltwater left behind on a mudflat by a springtide low. The puddle had been exposed to the Florida June sun for hours, and the puddle water temperature was 101 degrees Fahrenheit.
I don't walk around with thermometers in my pockets by the way. It was during a summer marine science camp for kids ... before Jeb Bush cut out foolishness like that.
Anyway ... in the puddle were 3 or 4 longnose killifish ducking in and out of the mud on the bottom. There couldn't have been more than a handfull of stray free oxygen atoms in that warm water and those fish had been in there for hours and still had hours to go before an incoming tide brought relief.
I have no doubt they made it.

A mudminnow to a flounder is like fresh fried chicken to me. I don't give a damn if I just ate a 5 course meal, if I see it and smell it, I wanna have a piece.
What is it you Weight Watcher types call that ... a "red light" food?

Mudminnows are redlight foods for flounder.


Here's a view of the creek I was in. The tide is out, which concentrates the fish for predators like me.
What do you notice ... botanically speaking ... about the view above?





The left side of the creek is dominated by Black Needle Rush (Juncus), which tells you that bank is higher ground. Needle rush likes to dip it's toes in the water a bit, but prefers to not be completely flooded at high tide.

Directly across from the Needle Rush, on a lower shoreline, Cordgrass (Spartina) is dominant. Spartina loves the water and thrives in the lowest parts of the "land" in a saltmarsh. Only the tops of the spartina plants will be above the high tide, but that's the way, uh huh, uh huh, they like it, uh huh, uh huh.

So, you can gaze out over a salt marsh and tell at a glance where the "high" ground is by looking for Needle Rush.

The creek was so shallow, I just set my collecting bucket and aerator down in the center of it. Even though these fish are superbly adapted to the low oxygen conditions of warm, shallow tidal creeks, it's not fair to crowd them in a bucket with no added aeration.

I won the bucket and aerator above while down at Harbor Branch during a fish ID contest.
Go me!

Eventually, I was done and my shadow had all her pics, so we said our goodbyes and I headed east to my school to stock a few aquariums.

Once the fish were secure in their new digs, I locked up and pointed the JEEP towards home.

A few of the mollies went with me to live in a big outdoor tank and maybe, just maybe make some babies.

Here is that flashy male I mentioned back near the top of this post. Behind him are two preggy females. Mollies are livebearers. The eggs are carried internally and born "alive", but each has a yolk, ... each is independent of Mom for nutrition ... which means they are ovoviviparous.

Those birds so many of you go gaga over, are oviparous, and you, dear human reader, are viviparous.

(I can hear Miz S Googling and clicking now)

I Wish I Had Been Out Here Today, But ...

I wish I had been out here today, cruising the high tide line and watching the willet slurp beachhoppers from the wrack, or ...

... slipping quietly through the spartina grass and going nose to operculum with periwinkles, or maybe ...

... getting into a glowering contest with a hermit crab, or taking ...

... a trip to the Moon snail, or, and this would have been really neat, ...

... teasing a baby horseshoe crab, but ...

... I was sitting in an AP training session in Lake City with shoes, a shirt with sleeves, and long pants on.

I even wore a belt.

Oh well, there 's always tomorrow.

Blogger Mini Convention

Island Rider, FC, and Vicki at Crackers Restaurant showing they are not afraid of being photographed in the mid-day Florida sun.



Last week, I was lucky enough to meet two fellow bloggers down in Crystal River. Each of us have been regular readers and commenters at the other's sites for years. The week before, an email invitation to meet for lunch popped up and since I felt like I already knew them, I accepted the invitation. That feeling of knowing someone you have never met took care of any "first meeting" awkwardness and the conversation flowed over lunch. In fact, I talked alot more than I ate, which is pretty weird for me.


... but when you are in such charming company and at ease, it's easy for a relatively quiet guy to converse.





Now, ... I knew I was meeting 2 ladies, and ladies tend to be thoughtful and gifty, so I figured I'd better not show up empty-handed.


A quick trip to Dakotah Vineyards, our local muscadine grape vinter, gave me a pair of Noble wines to take along for my friends.



Here's my stash from our lunch meeting ... not shown is the amazing bread, delicious parmesean cheese, and squid ink (remember?) pasta that Vicki brought along. The Florida Cracker bumper sticker actually came after the meeting in an envelope addressed to my JEEP. I can honestly say this is the first time my JEEP has received personal mail.


"Spartina" is next on my reading list, and was chosen by Vicki. I think the main character made her think of me ...




... I see why.

This beautiful bit of glass artwork was created by Cathy (Island Rider). She honored me by using a photo of a reflecting little blue heron I had posted as her inspiration for the work.

She also honored me by doing this piece twice as the first piece did not survive the post office.

Cathy also created a piece for the missus as I have let slip a few times here that Mrs. FC is a rabid UF Gators fanatic.

The little blue heron piece fits perfectly with our rustic Florida living room and should be relatively safe from Bear's amazingly high browse line.

It was a nice visit and none of us turned out to be axe-murderers, which was a great relief.

Diversions vs Work ... Diversions Win!

This summer, I've been working on the outside of PFHQ.
If you have been reading PF for a while, you know that I have taken on an interior remodeling project each summer.
Somewhere along the way, I should have paid a little more attention to the exterior, instead of dandying up the inside.

That neglect has created a few headaches ... mostly in water damaged porch parts that would still be fine if I had not put off some wood TLC.

So, I am making a mess of things outside instead of inside this summer, and as I work, I silently whine about not being in the woods, on the water, etc.

Happily, PFHQ is a pretty wild place in it's own right, so every so often, the critters come to me as I work.

The Imperial Moth above showed up as Junior was powerwashing the front porch while I repaired the back porch. This is a huge moth with a crazy-freak of a caterpillar. I don't have a pic of the larva, ... googlie it.

In between moths and carpentry, my college buddy Dave showed up to pull me away from sawdust and step construction. He and his better half purchased a beautiful piece of forested land in a county to the north and Dave was in town to meet with his contractors.
The morning after he arrived, we cruised to his land so he and the contractors could get on the same page.

Dave is in the blue shirt on the right with the boonie hat. He and his wife are going to build a BK Cypress log home on these 6 forested acres. Here he is discussing his dream with the general contractor and the tree surgeon. They are standing in a sea of beautyberry that has filled in an old drive.

Dave wants to clear just enough land for the home and a little storm clearance, leaving the rest of the land natural. His contractors seem to be on the same wavelength so I think he is in good hands. We spent a nice morning bushwacking and marking a drive and building clearing site.


The land is loaded with towering, straight live oaks ... something you just don't see anymore, although that would have been the norm pre-us. Live oaks only grow tall and straight in dense forest. Today, most live oaks you see in the south are broad, spreading trees of moderate height since they have grown up in open well lit conditions.
Both are beautiful, but it's great to see forest grown live oaks like this. Great to know they will continue to thrive with Dave's minimal clearing philosophy.

After a few days, Dave hopped on a plane to fly home and I got back to work.

These lacewing eggs on some porch trim tried to distract me from my toil.
It was only a momentary diversion.

Then this tiny anole pup caught my eye and made me lay the drill and porch step treads down for a few minutes.

On the far side of the porch, a pair of pottery wasp nests required some photographic TLC.

... and there was that baby gopher, but I did already give it a post as you may recall.

Eventually, I was able to get back to work and accomplish something.

Here I am getting high.

(Yes, I am getting some spray into the attic vent ... I know, I know)

I let Junior powerwash most of the house, but he's not crazy about high ladders and this is the riskier side of the house since the electric line comes in to the house to my right.

So this side was mine to do.

Actually in this heat, powerwashing is not a bad task, not bad at all.

When all the powerwashing is done and the cedar has had a good drying period, we will be staining and retrimming PFHQ with a high quality stain.

The kids were a little young to help the last time this place was stained, but now they are fully capable of applying stain, so I think this job will actually be a speedy one.

Of course, by that time ... Katie and Emma will be back in college and Junior will be involved in football practice and all the blur of activity that is your senior year in high school.

So, it may not be THAT fast a job after all.

Bear Naked Monday

(Technically, Bear is not completely naked in these pics, since he is wearing a collar.)


It's Monday and I thought you might be needing a chuckle ... you know how Mondays can be.



So, let's begin with a tutorial on dog tossing. Below you will find a collage demonstrating proper Labrador Lobbing procedures.

Upper Left: Lift
Lower Left: Toss
Upper Right: Clean entry
Lower Right: Splashdown

There were so many fun moments with Bear at Hagen's Cove last week that I cheated and collaged them for efficiency.
Just click on either collage to get a bigger view.

Bear did a lot of swimming that day so we would scoop him up and give him a rest from time to time. Junior took this seriously and felt a need to hold him like a big baby (lower left corner). Emma chose the comforting, water supported hug hold ... and who can blame her, this dog is huge.

I like all these pics of course ... they are my kids and my dog, but I love his expression in the top center pic.
We had just got into the water, and it was a new experience to be in so much dog deep water. He was pressed close to me with an expression I've seen before on my human children when we were about to whitewater raft down the Nolichucky River Gorge in Tennesee several years ago.
Sort of a ...
"I trust you, but is this going to be okay?



And finally, the video above. Some Mondays need stronger medicine than just some cute kid/dog pics, so I present,"Bear vs The White Devil".

Here's how the video came about...

My college buddy Dave was down for the weekend to deal with some contractors regarding a log home he is going to build. It was late afternoon and we were in the kitchen preparing a Chinese stirfry supper when we noticed Bear acting squirrelly, but we didn't see what was causing it.

Dave was chopping Chinese goodies and I was standing in front of the kitchen window texting a teacher buddy of mine about the proposed course schedule for this year. When I stopped texting to see what was causing Bear to be so animated, he stopped chasing whatever it was.

I thought it must be some bug that had flown in, and didn't give it much more thought.
When I answered a text, he started up again.

AND THAT IS WHEN WE SAW IT.

When I held my cell phone up to text as I stood in front of the window, the late day sunlight bounced off my phone and onto the wall ... and Bear immediately gave chase.

Once we knew what he was after, I grabbed the camera and ... well, you've watched the video by now so you know.

I hope you got a little chuckle out of it like we did.

Just click on it throughout the day as work piles up and things won't seem quite so bad.

Shorebird Sunday

I was able to squeeze in a few bird shots by slipping away from the Bear induced commotion during our visit to Hagen's Cove. The abundant beachhoppers that I showed you in an earlier post were a powerful draw for the hordes of hungry shortleggers.

I believe I have a sanderling and two short-billed dowitchers, but I am open for correction by you professional birdwatchin' types.
If you are like me and wonder how a bird with a bill that long gets a label like "short-billed", you should know that it is short when compared to the "long-billed dowitcher"

It's all relative and it may even be moot, if I have misidentified these birds.

Whoever they are, their choice of cryptic coloration is excellent as they only have to hold still to disappear against the brown detrital seagrass wrack.

At the time I took the pics, I had not ventured up onto the mucky detrital shoreline, so I didn't really know what they were nipping up out of the dead seagrass, but it had to be the abundant beachhoppers and perhaps some of the small fiddlers that were burrowing through the grass.

Sparkling sanderling.

Opposing views.

This day was a play day with the dog and I count myself pretty lucky to squeeze in some unexpected bird shots. The bird photo potential at the Cove, alone in my kayak, this winter, with a multitude of migrants using the surrounding marshes, leaves me drooling with anticipation.

Sorry about that drool thing.

Hey birders, please chime in with ID opinions, I'm open to correction or validation.

Walking Back To Land

The tide was ebbing, but still up pretty good after our Bear swimming excursion last week. We could have loaded ourselves into the canoe and paddled back to shore, but it was so nice out there we chose to walk.



We did load Mr. Bear up since for him it would have been a swim back, not a walk back, and that puppy was one pooped pooch.

Along the way, we saw some more critters ...



See it?
If you don't, you better remember to shuffle your feet, ala the stingray shuffle, when you walk the shallows of the Gulf of Florida.

Here's a close-up view of a southern stingray cruising by me as I walked back to land. We had not seen any rays the whole time we were playing with Bear, but as the tide began to move out and WE calmed down from splashy Bear fun to quiet walking, they came zooming by us.

Southern stingrays are bottom feeders who slurp up inverts from the mud and crush them with some pretty neat plates in their gullet. They are not aggressive although they are essentially flat sharks, but then, most sharks are'nt aggressive either.

If you stood still, they would cruise pretty close until suddenly realizing that those skinny legs were not part of the normal scenery, then swiftly, gracefully, they were gone.

The horseshoe crabs crossed our path from time to time as we waded back. In the picture below a smaller male is clasping a female. They are not mating. He is hanging around so that when she does decide to lay those eggs, he will be there for the action.

She will lay those eggs pretty high up on the shore, probably on a spring tide. When she does, he's hoping to be the one to fertilize the eggs, which will hatch about a month later on another spring tide.
... if the shore birds don't get them first.

We Who Are About To Die ...

Only the brave ...

So, a few days ago, a friend of mine gave me a gift.

It was wrapped in clear wrap, nestled in one of those little foam trays that wrapped things from the fresh grocer come in.

It was a black mound of ... something.

I stared at it.

There was a label on it, but without my over 50 reading specs on, I couldn't quite make out the writing on the label.

"It's squid ink pasta," she said as she watched my face for a reaction.

"Oh" (See, I'm really good at witty conversation.)

"It's squid ink pasta from an amazing Italian grocery and you HAVE to post about it and let us know how it was."

Oh, no. I guide students through squid dissections each year. I know squid intimately inside and out ... it's not pretty in there ... and the ink sac ... it's full of dark crumbly goo.

And what was it one of those food guys said ... something about cooking in bitter pungent squid ink. Didn't I wrinkle my nose in disgust at that episode ... was it Zimmern or Bordain ... not sure, but EATING SQUID INK?

And now, I had been gifted ... and challenged to share the results!

I thanked my new/old friend, we've known each other for a long time, but we had just met.

Lucky for me, my old college roommate Dave was in for the weekend and Dave will eat anything. He just spent a year in China eating scorpions and such, so I knew he'd have a good plan for this molluscan macaroni.

And I was right.

I showed Dave the black lump and he came up with a plan ... Shrimp and Squid Ink Pasta in a Genovese Pesto Sauce.

We hit the grocery store for some ingredients and liquid courage and got to cookin'.

Eventually, it was done and the moment of truth had arrived. The dish was plated, the diners were forked, and all that was left was to dig in.

I was really expecting a strong fishy taste, but I WAS WRONG ... WONDERFULLY ... GLORIOUSLY WRONG!

It was great! It tasted like normal very fresh pasta with the only clue to a Cephalopodic origin being the inky black color.

I even had seconds.

Detritus Dog Versus The Angry Amphipods

There's mischief afoot ... someone is devouring detritus in the marsh. Superhero Detritus Dog is called in to save the day ...

Here we see Detritus Dog resting in the seagrass wrack on an island somewhere on Florida's Nature Coast.

Little does he know that his haunches are being surveiled by millions of tiny Beachhoppers, aka Amphipods, as he sits in the oozy mix of rotting seagrass flotsam and mud.
Detritus Dog is so focused on the mystery of the missing detritus, that he has deactivated his butt nerves to focus all available neurons on solving this mystery. As a result, he is clueless to the swarming hordes beneath him.


Detritus Dog's attention is focused on his faithful sidekick, FC Man, who has detained a likely detrital debris deconstructor, The Fiddler!


FC Man restraining the Fiddler ...

"All right, give it up Fiddler! Tell us who is munching all this detritus! It can't be just you and the Fiddler gang, you don't even work at high tide. "

"Fiddle me this, fiddle me that, I'll never tell man, dog, or cat."

The Fiddler wasn't talking. Detritus Dog and his sidekick decided to shake up the neighborhood and see what might fall out.



FC Man and Detritus Dog discover the Beach Hopper hideout! Realizing they are outnumbered, Detritus Dog pulls out his silent Dog Whistle (which only birds can hear) and calls in the air force!


Out of the blue, the air force swoops in and makes short work of the Hopper Clan.

Another victory for Detritus Dog and FC Man!

Then And Now

Time flies ...



THEN: One of my favorite pictures ever.

NOW: Yes, same boy, and there IS a baby gopher in this shot too, it's just that the boy has become Godzilla-like in the meantime, while a baby gopher is still a tiny thing.

Yesterday, Emma, Junior, Bear, and I went back to Hagen's Cove just to romp with Bear and give him some serious swimming experience.

It was wild, let me tell you, and I have a bunch of new salty pics for you, but I thought you might need a break from pristine waters, shorebirds, horseshoe crabs, snorkeling, fish, insane dogs, and estuarine life abundant.

Tomorrow though ... those cute Bear pics are burning a whole in my megapixelly pocket ... gotta spend 'em!

Today, I'm on a mission to the south. I'll be posting about that too.

Soon come.

Limuli Interruptus

The walk back to the mainland after our snorkeling adventure at Hagen's Cove was full of fascinating critters cruising the now exposed tidal flats. One of the most common and easiest to spot animals was the horseshoe crab.
There were big'uns, little 'uns, and molts left over from little 'uns becoming bigger 'uns.

By now you are probably aware that horseshoe crabs are not crabs at all, but more closely related to scorpions and their kin. They are Arthropods of course, and like real crabs, they have lots of jointed clacky parts that move in the most amazing ways.

They have been around for a really long time ... essentially unchanged. Apparently they are waiting to see if this whole evolution thing is worth pursuing.
This may be why there are only 4 species of horseshoe crabs on the planet.


Why change when you have a face like this?

The baby above is exploring Emma's gentle hands after she plucked him from the shallows for a visit.
You can find out all you would ever want to know about horseshoe crabs with a quick Gooooogly search, so I won't go into the biology too much, except to say if you love shorebirds, you need to love the horseshoe crab.
Their mass spawnings on beaches up and down the Atlantic and Gulf coasts stock the larder that stokes the shorebird's engines during their migrations.


Battered, but alive.

This horseshoe crab is alive, but missing some parts. He was plenty active so he should be able to survive a few missing appendages, and being an arthropod, he's able to regenerate those parts over time and molts.

As I was walking and gawking at all the intertidal critters I love, I spotted what I thought was just a single horseshoe crab buried almost completely in the sand. As is my way, I had to touch it, hold it, and generally mess with it.
What I thought was one turned out to be more ... check out the video to see what I found.




Today, I'm heading out with Bear and some mostly grown kids to the Gulf of Florida again.
I'm sure that should bring out a post or two ... you know how Bear is ...Apparently he travelled out to Missouri yesterday while I wasn't looking.

I'm gonna need a longer leash ...

My New Cool Thing

On that recent trip to Hagen's Cove (below), I took along a new piece of boating gear to "test drive".

Peer into the inner recesses of FC's new cool thing.

The picture above shows the vast interior of my new H2Zero Omni-Drybag. I already have a small drybag just big enough for the camera and a really cool dry case for my cell phone, but I was lacking a big, all encompassing drybag for extra towels, camera, lunch, etc.

I ordered the H2Zero bag to fill that equipment gap.

Aboard our 19 foot, very wet, Carolina Skiff, we have used boat bags that close with a zipper, but before long the zippers are corroded, or off track and the bag is no longer water tight.

What's nice about this H2Zero bag is it's simplicity. There are no zippers to break or corrode, Plus, getting in and out of it is quick and easy.

You just stuff your goodies in the sack.

Here I am dropping my prized JEEP wallet into the H2Zero bag.

After your goodies are in there, you just fold the top over 3 times and snap the click catch. At that point, you are water tight. This bag is holding some snacks, two beach towels, a couple of extra T-shirts, a wallet, 2 cell phones, and a camera bag with room to spare.

Since this was the bag's shake down cruise, the question was ... would it truly keep our stuff dry?

The answer is yes!

On our snorkeling canoe trip to Hagen's Cove, we launched under cloudy skies and a light rain. Later the skies cleared and we were in and out of the canoe, dripping and splashing. After a while of this, the H2Zero bag was sitting in a puddle of water, but all of our gear stayed nice and dry.

Like my BubbaKeg insulated mug, my Sony DSC-H5 camera, and my beloved JEEP, I'm going on the record as a fan of H2Zero dry bags.

I got mine from Outer Sports athletic apparel and equipment. They've got lots of cool sports stuff ... everything from rock climbing gear to golf apparel.This H2Zero bag will be going with me on lots of future paddling excursions.

Tomorrow, with a little luck, I should have some horseshoe crab video posted ... including a case of limulus interruptus ...stay tuned.