Sore Shore Bird

 This little Dunlin was hanging out near the gravel boat launch at Shell Mound last week. Emma, Bear, and I had just beached the canoe after a good paddle, when the Dunlin caught my eye ... mainly due to his refusal to fly away after we slid in only a few feet away.

He was standing on one foot, which the shorebird clan seems to do alot, ... nothing weird there, but he had what could only be described as a "hangdog look" ... as if he just didn't feel very good.

Plus, as I mentioned, he didn't try to fly away when two humans and a giant labrador retriever pulled up next to him.

 Something had to be amiss.

I oozed over a little closer. 

He perked up when I approached him slowly, but did not fly or move away.

This Dunlin's symmetry was ... well, ... not. 

A side view showed a left ankle that seemed swollen and red compared to the right.

Ouch!

That looks so painful, don't you just want to lance it, flush it with hydrogen peroxide, and pack it with Neosporin?

If it were my foot, that's what I would do.

After a few photos, I left the dunlin alone to deal with his sore foot. When the canoe was all strapped down tight, I turned to see if the tiny bird was still there. He was, but at that very moment he lifted off and flew out over the water towards a shell bar just barely exposed by a falling tide.

The bar was already crowded with other dunlins, terns, and willets as he swooped in for a landing.

At least he would have company,

... misery loves company.

A Christmas Card From PFHQ

Merry Christmas!

Thanks for dropping in, lurking, commenting, and hanging out with me here at Pure Florida.

You make it a joy to share the beauty and wildlife of my favorite part of my favorite planet.

 I hope you have a wonderful holiday.

Bear Goes Crabbing

 Emma and I took Bear crabbing out at Shell Mound yesterday. The actual crabbing part was an afterthought.

In truth, my focus was simply getting some water time in with my baby girl and big dog. Crabbing is pretty simple though ... some string, some chicken scraps, ... it seemed an easy addition to our list of things to do, or not do, on this trip.

... and there were all those chicken backs in the freezer marked "crab bait", taking up space. I know they were taking up space, because periodically, I was reminded of this fact.

 Bear pondered why anyone would toss a perfectly good piece of raw chicken into the Gulf of Florida, and then periodically pull it in, only to toss it out again.

It was a mystery to him.

A mystery to me also, since the crabs just weren't "feelin' it".
So after a while, Emma and I just released the chicken into the Gulf and enjoyed the day with Bear.

 Bear was surprisingly good for only his second canoe ride ever. Only once, when we passed too close to a shell bar with shorebirds packed beak to butt, did he cause a few moments of Tippacanoe and Tyler too.

 He stared down those birds and saved us from attack.
Or... at least that's what Emma and I told him.

He seemed to buy it.

 On one of the tiny uninhabited islands around Shell Mound, we stopped to stretch our legs and give Bear some water time.

 A piece of red cedar substituted for any of a dozen water toys we left at home.

 He retrieved, explored the shore, and just swam off into the Gulf over and over again ... doing what Labs do, what they love, what they need.

 He was having so much fun that when we told him it was time to go, he waded out into the water and struck a rebellious pose.

Eventually, he came to his senses and we loaded up for the paddle back to the excellent gravel launch at Shell Mound. Thank you USFWS, it is much improved and that composting restroom is spotless and odorless ... how the hell... anyway, ... good job.

 Emma got this shot of two happy guys after a good day on the marsh.

He (Bear) looks perky, but he's really pooped out and ready to snooze.

At least, he seemed tired, but a couple with a little girl dog pulled up at the ramp while we were strapping the canoe on to the trailer ... suddenly he was Mr. Perky again.

Good boy, Bear, good boy.

BALD EAGLE PARTS

If you were here yesterday, you know I had a pretty raptoriffic encounter with a very cooperative Bald Eagle along a country road.

So if yesterday's post could be classified as sort of a "GEE WHIZ, WOWSERS, YOWZA!" kind of eagle post, today's will be a calmer, (BUT DAMN! IT WAS SO COOL!), ... ahem, look at some eagle parts.

First, thank you birders for your input, and especially, Julie Zickefoose, thank you for the gender probability.

I'm referring to this eagle as a "She" from now on, because:

A) Zick seems to think she is a girly girl.

B) I have a policy here that anything beautiful is a "she" if I am not really sure about the gender.

Before we get started, let's pause and thank Rachel Carson.

I'm pretty sure, (having grown up in the scarce bird of prey- DDT era), that we owe our eagles and ospreys to her.

Now, let's poke and prod this ea-girl.

(I can't bring myself to call her a hen)



She's big! I left the fence and road in this shot so you had some size reference. This encounter made me curious about how much an eagle might weigh ... 8 to 16 pounds ... which is quite a range if you think of it.

A little cruising about the net showed that the weight of her feathers exceeds that of her skeleton.

Her feet are big, bone-crushingly powerful, and equipped with scimitar claws that would make Raptor Red proud.

It's pretty common here on the Gulf coast to see an eagle flying overhead with a large fish struggling in those claws.

I don't think they drop many. I count as one of my luckiest moments, a day on Moses Creek in St. Johns county, when I witnessed an eagle harrass an osprey in mid-air until the osprey dropped his mullet...

...which the eagle snatched out of the air as it fell.

She can do piratical stuff like that because her talons lock down tight and the bottom of those feet have little projections called spicules (also a Porifera term, marine nerds) that help grip prey.

It wasn't cold on the day of my eagle encounter, so I am guessing the fluffy aspect here is to show me how big and bad she is.

Duly noted oh "Taloned One".

Even though I kept a pretty respectful distance, there was a moment when she thought about taking her meal elsewhere.

She picked it up.

There were a few hoppy, flappy attempts to take it somewhere else, but in the end, she decided to keep dining right where she was.

It's good to have your nostrils high on your bill if you plan to spend lots of time plunging that thing into carrion.

Her bill ... what can you say about it?

An avian Ginsu.

We all know she's got super vision, but until yesterday, I didn't realize she has two fovea in each eye.

You have one.

Go look it up.

She also has a nictitating membrane for some extra eye protection.

Just like sharks.

I left her there, feeding on that hog's head, thankful for the encounter, still not believing it worked out the way it did.

Were it not for Christmas break ... I would have been at work.

I may have to rethink this whole working thing.

What else am I missing?

BALD EAGLE!! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME!

I try not to leave the house without my camera and I can't tell you how many times that has made ALL the difference in my day and here at Pure Florida.

Yesterday, after doing almost all of my Christmas shopping online, I was missing some of the hustle and bustle that used to drive me crazy ... before online shopping.
Maybe I should actually "GO" shopping.

So, with the pressure off, I cleaned up and set out for Gainesville to join the herds.

I didn't think there would be time to do any critter photography, but I brought the camera anyway.
As it turns out, Miss Sara N. Dippity was riding along with me as I pulled out of our driveway.

Not more than a half-mile from drive, three bald eagles were working on a dead hog.
It's common this time of year for hog and deer hunters to leave a stripped carcass along the wooded roadsides out here on the frontier.

As I approached, all but one of the eagles flew off.

I slowed, reminded myself that this one would fly too, ... probably as soon as I turned on my camera.

I turned it on anyway.
In the seat next to me, Sara smiled sweetly.
Was it pity?

I pulled over across and down from the eagle. Better a cropped, zoomed, through the windshield shot than nothing at all.

The eagle seemed much more concerned about his dead hog meal than me, so I unzipped the JEEP window and poked the lens out.

Still there.

I shot a bunch, then decided to move closer.
When the JEEP rumbled to life again, I just KNEW that eagle would take flight.

Nope.
Still there.

Three times I moved the JEEP, ... each time, getting a little bit closer with a little bit better light angle.

The eagle kept an eye on me, but continued his pulled pork dinner.



I shot 124 photos, and a handful of video clips, including the one below.

Now, I'm not going to throw a hundred shots up here and run y'all off, so I think we'll save some of the close-up feeding action shots for another post.

I was pretty stoked after the encounter.

Beach First, Work Second.

We took time to hit the beach before going to work at Mom's house yesterday. On every previous trip, I had promised myself that I would hit the beach after the work was done.

I never got there as we always worked until dark.

So, yesterday, with Junior and Bear along for the ride, I turned the JEEP onto SR 206, slipped across the long bridge over the intracoastal, and cruised down onto Crescent Beach ... before checking in at Mom's

The beach access sign said, "4 Wheel Drive Only".
The JEEP smiled knowingly.

As soon as the doors opened, Bear took Junior for a run.

A boy and his dog.

Junior helped Mom put up her Christmas yard decorations out front while I got things ready for rail installation on the wheelchair ramp.
A little history ...

My Dad, a polio survivor, fell and broke his knee a while back. He's mending, but going down the porch steps with a brace, a crutch, and a weak leg has proven to be not only more difficult, but more dangerous.

A ramp would make life easier for both he and my Mom, and so the ramp project was born.

The bulk of the ramp was built over the last few weekends by my brother and I. So far, it has consumed about 3-4 Saturdays ... which is not that bad I suppose for a couple of guys who have never built a wheelchair ramp before.
I researched ramp slopes and features, scratched out a plan, and the rest morphed out as my brother and I worked on those previous Saturdays.
My brother picks up a lot of the parental chores since I am far away, so Junior and I slipped over unannounced to give him a break.

All we had to do on this trip was trim the 4x4's down and install some sturdy railing.

And, any other errand that Mom came up with during the day.

We worked steady, only stopping to eat and dash to Home Depot for wood and carriage bolts.
Junior turned out to be an excellent sidekick and we soon fell into a good work rhythm.
The sun set before we finished (surprise!) and the last two rails went on in semi-darkness. Every so often, one of us had to jump around in the target zone of the security light so we could see what we were doing.

This added a bit of comedy just when we needed it.

Eventually, that last rail went up and we could could call this project complete.

Yes, still tweakable, but complete and ready for use.

After dark again.

Always go to the beach first.

THE LAST DATIL PEPPER

 This spindly datil pepper never was properly transplanted last spring, never got moved out of the shady light near the house, and often wasn't watered.

All summer long it grew between the house and the surrounding oaks, receiving just a few hours of direct light and longing for the sunny garden spot where a dozen datils basked in the best light at PFHQ.

A few weeks ago, we had our first freeze, just barely freezing mind you, but enough to cause the garden datils to give it up.

Not this little guy.

Apparently the warmth of the west facing house wall and the warmer air beneath the live oaks kept it ... not only alive, but fairly frisky.

Micro-climates, folks.
... or maybe in this case ... Nano-climates.

Speaking of "Nano-" ... I am reading "Micro" on my Kindle Fire. 
Created by the late Mr. Crichton and finished by one of my favorite writers, Richard Preston.
Lots of fun, and you can tell as you read it that it should be a "Jurassic Park" style blockbuster movie in the near future.

 Bear has no time for novel reading at bedtime or any other time.
He knows I'm off for Christmas break and that means we are going on adventures.
He is impatient to begin.

Lastly in this potpourri, I found a new money pit project for my pal, Kevin.
Is she a beauty or what?

Now, I must go.
Bear, Junior, and I have a mission to accomplish.

I will, of course, blog about it.

Mystery Snake: I Should Know This.

 This spectacularly beautiful little snake turned up under one of those black goldfish pond shells that sits, upside down in my garden area.

A few weeks ago, I flipped it over as I looked for a small skink to feed Zack the injured kingsnake. I never did find a skink, (and to be honest, I wasn't excited about feeding a a cute little skink to Zack).

I actually had Zack in my left hand when I flipped over the pond shell and spotted the mystery snake.
Zack was pretty calm, so I made a grab with my right hand while holding Zack and the pond shell in my left.

 The mystery snake was a beauty and a ... well, a mystery. He was obviously a juvenile mystery snake, which complicated things since baby snakes often have much more dramatic markings and colors than the adult forms.

He had a long slender tail like a coachwhip, but was younger (smaller) than any coachwhip I had ever caught.
Young coachwhips that have graced my hands were less brown and more greyish.

He did hold his head up once like racers do, but again, he was patterned differently and was much younger than any racer I had encountered.

 My online searches were not "smoking gun" successes, so I am tossing him out into the serpentine connections of the internet for you to ponder.

As docile and pretty as he was, I had enough snakes to care for at the time, so I let him go in the cozy darkness beneath the boat stuff shed.

Like any good mystery, he stayed on my mind for some time afterwards ... and now ... he's on yours.

Progressive Dinners: What In The World?

When you are the new guy on a school staff, the first year is a learning experience as you go through the seasons of the school, experiencing the traditional events particular to that site.

At my school, a Christmas "Progressive Dinner" is tradition.

The concept was a new one for me.

4 courses, 4 staff homes.

In this sparsely populated, geographically large county (bigger than Rhode Island), the distance between homes can be extreme.

I live less than 5 miles from my principal, which made me, the new clueless guy, an obvious choice for one of the stops.

So at the faculty meeting a month or so ago, when the progressive dinner was first announced, I was volunteered.

I accepted of course, heck, the wife is a professional caterer when she is not being a professional nurse.

This would be a breeze.

When I got home and announced that we were a stop in the progressive dinner, I got the news that the dinner date was also the date of the biggest party of the year for the Southern Sisters Caterers.

Translation: You will be hosting solo, Mr.

Yikes!

So today I will be tackling the list below instead of tromping around in the grey, damp, wintery wilds of Pure Florida.

There is a giant Key Lime Cake in the fridge though and my desert stop team of 4 other faculty members will be bringing their contributions later.

So, I feel good about this.

Even though the list awaits.

Guess which item on the list is the most fun.

So, now it's time for me to start tackling the list.

But, before I go, here's a little progressive dinner for you starring Zick, the official snake of Pure Florida.

She's growing nicely, so yesterday she progressed from frozen pinky mice to frozen fuzzies.

If you are not a frozen mouse in your freezer person, you may not know that fuzzies are the next size up in mousey snake food.
They are about twice the size of pinkies, but I felt it was time.

I was a little worried at first ... had I miscalculated Zick's readiness?

Nope.

It took her longer than usual to get it down, but she did just fine.

Afterwards, she was a complete log potato.

Is she smiling?

Okay, I'm off to be a white tornado.

(Google it,  you babies, the grownups remember...)

All I've Seen Lately

The only outdoors I've seen lately has been the Gulf sunrise as I get to work on the island and the Gulf sunset as I leave the island.

This mornings sunrise, combined with fantastic expanses of low tide mudflats, ... well, it was just too much to ignore.



So, I pulled over on the skinny causeway that snakes across the marsh and ties the island to the mainland.
Camera in hand, I crossed the road to a break in the mangroves where I could photograph the sun's entrance.
It was not the kind of sunrise scene you ignore or take for granted.
Sparkling, crisp air, tinted mud, glowing puddles of Gulf water, ... was there really anything at work so vital that three or 4 minutes spent here would be seen as 'wasted time"?

Don't think so.
Heck, I was early anyway and this seemed to be my reward for getting to work long before I really have to be there.




There are rewards for working late too.
It turns out, not only does the Sun rise , but it also sets.

It's a WIN-WIN situation.



Yo! Check Out My Student's Water Cycle Project! Yo!

After a unit on water, Florida's underground water supply, and the water cycle, my biology kids were told to come up with a water resource protection project.
They could use any format to deliver their message, so there was alot of choice involved.
In fact, I gave them a sheet of possible project media that listed over a hundred possible venues, from epitaphs and resumes, to skits, and songs.

A few of my kids chose music as their medium.
I believe we had 4 rap songs, but this one really rocked the house.

It's by a neat kid who works hard for his grades and who loves to rap.

It's not so much a video, but more of an audio file.

Crank up your volume and enjoy!

Give them choices and they will find a way.
This kid did.

I love the way he starts of all dweeby voiced, and then kicks it up.

The Schoolyard Osprey

This morning, I took my chemistry class out on a scavenger hunt for pure substances, heterogeneous mixtures, homogeneous mixtures, and solutions.

It seemed like a good way to have them process some of the week's key ideas and take advantage of a beautiful wintery day in Florida.

When we popped out the stairwell door and into the elementary school playground, one of the resident ospreys was waiting for us.

Well, hello Ms. Sara N. Dippity!

You know me, I usually have my camera with me, wherever I am.

So, as the students scattered out in teams seeking mixtures of all kinds, I walked over to the osprey's perch and grabbed a few portraits.

He was pretty magnificent against the bluemonguous sky.

He may need to work on his posture though. It was cold and breezy, so he was probably just conserving some of that bodacious bird body heat.

I wonder how many mullet have been field-stripped by that curved black blade?