"Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture."
            ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Summer has arrived in Southwest Florida. One day a few weeks back, a large hunk of thick humidity blew in from the Yucatan Peninsula and settled in like a hen on a nest. Just like that, in a blink, our lovely warm days and cool nights gave way to the weather of August. Snowbirds left town in droves and the streets have fallen silent.

Summer, for me, is the season of the boat. I've spent two weeks hatching a plan, then designing, then building the perfect kayak launch. Many modifications later - and several completely grace-less kayak flips at the dock - I am now the queen of PVC and the owner of a pretty nifty contraption. While it was great fun (most of the time, anyway) to create, the real beauty of this thing is the freedom it affords. I now, once again, can launch the kayak at will from the dock.

And so I have! Days and days of stolen moments between office work. Long paddles that meander with no particular destination in mind, stopping to swim and pan for shell gold. The past week, I've even left the camera at home. It's so unusual for me and the first time I paddled away from the dock without that big, heavy, black Pelican case, it seemed as though only half of me was aboard. And then I noticed how fast I could go across Hickory bay. The Kestrel flies without such baggage.

As luck always has it, I often see so many of my friends when I'm traveling light. Black-crowned night herons and reddish egrets - and yesterday - three manatee!

It's been a good time of recharging batteries, refilling the well, and reconnecting with places inside me that makes all this possible. These times alone, looking only with my eyes, I see so much more.

Nikon D2x, Nikkor 80-400mm VR @ 400mm, 1/125th sec, f/7.1

"O that mine eyes would cheat me! I behold
The godwits running by the water edge.”
          ~ Jean Ingelow, "The Four Bridges"

Early morning at North Beach. The sun is about to spill harsh light over the landscape in harmony with oil-slicked humans filling up the beaches. For now, though, I'm here with an amazing variety of birds, good light and the sand dunes ringing a small brackish pond. This marbled godwit drew my attention with it's pink and black long and slightly upcurved bill.

We followed each other for a time. It surely had the upper hand: I had no clue what kind of bird was in front of my lens while to it, I'm sure I was a dead ringer for an obviously  upright biped. We exchanged poses - me in a classic telephoto, "at their eye level" stance, and the godwit, looking far more pensive and natural and, dare I say, practiced? There is no doubt about it: wild fowl and creature alike on Mullet Key are very used to humans.

Godwits form an interesting group of the shore birds (Limicolae) and belong in the same family as the snipes and sandpipers. They command attention not alone because of their habits - and that crazy-cool pink and black upcurved bill, but also because for centuries they have been considered a delicate food for man, and much has been written in praise of their flesh.

Early in the sixteenth century, one of the European species was rated as "worth three times as much as the snipe," and was considered a delicacy of the French epicure. It is said that the black-tailed Godwit in the year 1766 was sold in England for half-a-crown. Godwits were hunted vigorously through to the early 1900's - they tend to flock and make easy targets and are not only "delicate morsels" but are a larger shorebird, thus a better day's yield.

Despite being in decline even today, these birds own handsome, sterling descriptions. A group of godwits are collectively known as "an omniscience of godwits", "a pantheon of godwits", and a "prayer of godwits."

We should be so lucky: "an omniscience of biped photographers", indeed!

Nikon D2x, Nikkor 80-400mm VR @ 400mm, 1/160th sec, f/7.1

"Every animal knows more than you do.”
          ~ American Indian Proverb

In any species, some creatures just know how to work the system.

As with many campgrounds, raccoons proliferate at Fort Desoto. Though nocturnal, they roam freely in the daylight hours, apparently having some intuitive sense and the experience behind it that says, "campers are all at the beach - time to raid the cupboard."

Me, I wasn't at the beach. I was asleep in the hammock when I heard the rustle of a tortilla chip bag from the top of the picnic table. Not your average chips, these were the pricey organic ones. Forget the other stuff on the table. Nothing but the best for this masked camp thief.

The chips hadn't been there when I fell asleep, and in the space of a split wake-up second, they weren't there any longer, but were flying across the site and into a clump of sabal palmettos. I leapt from the hammock (perhaps I staggered out) and took up the chase, yelling edicts that fell on deaf ears but were sure to entertain neighboring campers. In the fashion of a Stooges movie, this creature and I did five or six laps around the palmettos like this until all the chips eventually departed the bag. I have to admit that once the bag was empty, the raccoon had the manners to at least let me have it.  High class to the end, this creature knew not to litter.

Fifteen minutes of gluttony later, a completely unabashed raccoon flopped out in a languid heap in the palms. Some nerve.  It's a little humiliating to be skunked by a raccoon in a fight over some deep-fried corn.

Those American Indians got their proverb spot on.

Nikon D2x, Nikkor 80-400mm VR @ 400mm, 1/20th sec, f/5.3

"Always listen to yourself, Peekay. It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life.”
          ~ Bryce Courtenay from The Power of One

Fort Desoto Park has to be one of the nicest parks I've visited in a very long time. Amazingly, it costs just thirty-five cents to cross a toll bridge into this county park. That's it. Thirty-five cents. You can do just about anything on the island. Mullet Key is skirted on the Gulf side by powdered sugar beaches that win awards. There are hiking trails and biking trails and paddling trails. There are two piers - one 500' and the other 1000' - that are open 24/7 for chasing your fishin' jones. And its namesake, Fort Desoto, is a pretty amazing attraction with some mighty firepower that was never fired against an enemy.

North Beach is pretty famous in the bird photog world, and indeed, prowling around some tide pools and marshes near the point early one morning, I came across a tour group of photographers sporting some pretty serious firepower of their own.

On this night, I was delighted to find a great white egret riding the roof of the fishing hut at the end of the longest pier in the strong Gulf breeze, watching the ball fall and waiting for fish, just like the two-legged hunters out there.

Most everyone gathered at the end of the pier or on the noth side of it, where the view of the sun was unblemished. I sat in the sand nearly under the the pier's onramp, waiting for the same ending as everyone, watching the light change, the colors bloom, and the sun's vertical transit down the pier.

I sat there, fully happy in that moment and completely grateful for my own inner ear and - right or wrong - my own kind of vision.

And that egret...that egret held its pose on the roof facing west until the light show was over. Then, like the rest of us, it was gone. Some things, it seems, are just destined to become nothing more than memories.

Nikon D2x, Nikkor 80-400mm VR @ 400mm, 1/80th sec, f/10

"Hold fast to your dreams for without them, the broken winged bird cannot fly.”
          ~ Langston Hughes

I am writing this post from camp site #78 in Fort DeSoto Park, which is on Mullet Key on a brave little cell phone connection. Sometimes it's nothing short of amazing when technology works for you.

I am here for a few days of rest (as though photographers afield ever do that!) and hopefully a photo op or two. It's been stunningly gorgeous weather. The park is pretty, the paddling delicious and wildlife abundant. So far, in our little site nestled in the cabbage palms and sabal palmettos, there have been maurading raccoons, squirrels, cardinals, red-winged blackbirds, crows, ibises, herons of all kinds, very noisy laughing gulls who are mating everywhere I look, squirrels and some very noisy campers next door. As I said, wildlife is abundant.

Today, after a wonderful paddle to Shell Key Preserve and a long afternoon of reading and beachwalking, we returned to find four of these parakeets screeching in a tree on the edge of the camp site. I was amazed. The green was so luminous! I had my Nat'l Geo bird ID book with me and to my surprise, read: "native to Brazil and Argentina. Introduced in Pinellas County, Florida."

Cool beans. Parakeets! A new one for my feather book.

Nikon D2x, Nikkor 80-400mm VR @ 400mm, 1/400 sec, f/8