Sushi Lesson

This morning, while visiting Rich Grissom Wetlands in Viera, I was treated to a lesson in preparing and eating sushi. In this case, the main course is, I think, a grass carp?

Step 1: catch fish and head towards the shore:

Step 2: adjust your grip so that the fish head is held firmly between your jaws. Crunch down:

Step 3: Slowly rotate fish while firmly chomping:

Step 4: Take a little nap, repeat as needed, remember to keep a firm grasp on the fish while eyes are closed:

It is most important to keep rotating the fish, as you work on crunching all its bones. This should make it easy to extract the good parts and separate them from the rest later in the process:

Step 5: After about 10-15 minutes, you should begin to notice a nice separation occurring between the head and the body of the fish. Continue rotating and chewing and this should improve.

During Step 6, you may wish to check, from time to time, on whether or not the fish can be swallowed with the head attached:

Step 7: You should, as the head detaches, be able to begin separating the guts from the head by giving it a good toss:

A few additional crunches may be necessary to complete the separation process:

Step 8: When you are sure you have good separation, grab onto the guts and shake with all your might! This will detach the head and you can swallow the guts and spit out the head (No need to worry, heads are biodegradable!):

Step 9: Once the head is gone, you can pick up the body and swallow it whole:

Caution: All of that activity may draw a crowd of onlookers, in which case, you will need to back away very slowly and make a retreat from the shore to finish your meal in peace:

Note: the great blue heron was bold, but he got no sushi from this gator. Furthermore, he was definitely not interested in the head that got left behind!

Life List

This morning, I was thrilled to add the red-tailed hawk to my life list. When I first saw her from a distance, I wanted her to be an eagle; she certainly screamed like one as she flew down from the top of her snag as I approached with the dog. Because I did not want to miss this chance to photograph her, I took the dog home, grabbed my camera, and headed back out into the woods. She was still there and still unapproachable. It wasn't until I downloaded the photos and found her in Sibley's that I knew who she was, however. Not an eagle, but a big and beautiful hawk.

Thinking about that term--life list--a term for the list most birders keep on which we record the first time we see a species alive in the field--made we wonder about all the birds I have never seen and all the birds I have seen and not been able to identify. How long will my life list grow to be? What small fraction of all the birds in the world will I ever see alive in the field? What difference does a list make in my life, anyway?

If I'm honest about it with you, my life list hasn't been physically updated in years . . . mostly just a checklist in my head and not very precise. I may tell you that bird is a lifer for me, then go home and find a photo I took a few years ago that I'd forgotten. Guess I'm just not a very serious birder. . .

Later, as I was reading a book by Pascal Mercer, something he wrote brought me back to that bird: "Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us--what happens with the rest?" I remember thinking like that, years ago: that each moment presented endless possibilities, all but one of which disappears, forever, as we decide which way to go. I could have continued with the dog and lost the bird, I could have changed my shirt for one with less color that would have made me more able to approach her ("be one with nature . . .") and gotten spectacular photos, or just stood still and watched her for as long as the dog would have allowed and never known for sure what she was. Whatever the possibilities were, they no longer exist.

I suppose it's nothing more than confluence of energy that makes us move from step to step, to see or not see that bird, to pick up the binoculars and camera and go or to sit at the computer and type, to pick up a book and read or to walk out into the field and observe . . . And I'm thankful, today, that I've made it into retirement with enough good health, energy, and resources to be able to have these moments, whether or not the bird ever makes it onto my life list.

Oh, one last thought: I hope the hawks in that woods (there's a beautiful pair of red-shoulders) don't get all the wonderful glass lizards and five-lined skinks that live out there!

Earl Swings By . . .

Yesterday afternoon, waves from Hurricane Earl peaked at about 13' along the Spacecoast of Florida. We visited Melbourne Beach, just to see how big they were and to watch the locals try to surf the waves.

Unfortunately, the surfing proved to be not so great because of winds that were causing the waves to fill in quickly, but this guy managed to get a couple short rides on swells bigger than most they've seen in a while. Just getting out past the break looked exhausting, and the swells were moving so fast, most of the riders out there couldn't paddle fast enough to get over the top and down the face of the wave.

We arrived as the sun was beginning to leave the beach, and the birds were beginning to settle, which proved a great time to let my grandson try his hand at photographing them. You can see, from the picture below, that he's got the knack!

Well done! Not bad for his first sanderling on the shore, shot with a digital SLR! It would be great to see more young people out there shooting with cameras rather than guns, wouldn't it?

Not to be outdone, I clicked off a few shots of some of the birds, myself, as the pounding surf turned up some good stuff for the willets to collect.

Thankfully, Earl stayed well to the east of Florida; let's hope it stays off the entire U.S. coast!

Leatherback Hatchling

UCF research students, monitoring a leatherback nest on South Melbourne Beach.

I went to the beach this morning to check out the surf being kicked up by Earl, beginning to make its pass just east of the Florida coast. To my delight, these two young researchers were checking the nest of a leatherback turtle, where they were monitoring the hatch rate and checking for undeveloped embryos. While sorting through the eggs, they turned up a hatchling; did I want to release it? Hell, yeah!


This little guy (I really have no idea if its a guy or a gal; the masculine presumption is just something that was ingrained by dozens of teachers training us in "proper" grammar) wasn't moving much in the box, but his little flippers took off when I picked him up! He was ready to start swimming, that's for sure, and I wasn't so sure that he really wanted any help at all.

Here he is after his first encounter with the water. One small wave, and he knew exactly where he wanted to go! It's too bad he picked such a bad day to try to get into the surf! Earl was churning up the shore!

Wave #2 put him back up on the sand.

But that didn't stop him from flapping his way towards the ocean . . .

A local surfer was not so patient as I, and since he feared the little one might get picked off by a bird, he walked him into deeper water and he was gone, swimming strongly away from the shore.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8254841@N07/

Stroll Along Turkey Creek

Started out today on a quest to visit and photograph the parks and preserves of Brevard County. First stop: Turkey Creek Sanctuary in Palm Bay, where I hoped to find some early migrants. The hammock and scrub were eerily quiet, however, with only a handful of cardinals, Carolina wrens, red-bellied woodpeckers, and white ibis wandering around. I did ID one Northern Waterthrush on a log in the creek, but it was too far to photograph with any clarity.

This Amanda's pennant (just over 1" in life size) was the first living creature I encountered, sunning itself in the pine scrub area of the sanctuary.

There are jogging trails, exercise trails, a boardwalk, and a canoe launch in the park; this morning, I was taken with the image of this woman strolling along under a parasol, reading a book as she walked. What a nice way to start the day!

The best find of the morning, however, was a five-lined skink (actually, two of them!) Check out the incredibly vibrant blue tail of the immature skink hanging out on the boardwalk railing:

The sawed-off blunt tip testifies to the ability of these lizards to break off their tails to survive a predatory attack.

Not far away, a more mature skink watched from the trunk of a tree. (The vibrant blue tail of the young skink fades with age.)

Another lizard that's common to encounter in the sanctuary is the anole, this male a nice shade of mottled brown. They're fun to watch, too, as they expand their orange throats in mating displays.

Beauty berries are abundant right now and many of the trees are covered with fruit and seeds, so the migrants should be easy to find when they do arrive.

And I had one final encounter with a thin-waisted wasp, as I left the sanctuary. Isn't it a beauty?

That's it for today; I'll be headed to the beach tomorrow to check out the Maritime Hammock trails and to get some photos of the 8-12' surf they say we're going to get from Fiona.

Transition . . .

Tomorrow is the last day I will ever drive into HHS as an employee, after 33 years of teaching; this thought comes with much joy and a bit of anxiety. This morning, I found an "Alumni of Hagerty High 2010" t-shirt in my mailbox--an unexpected and much appreciated surprise.

What this means is that I'll have more time to be in the field with my camera, time to develop additional photography skills, and lots of time to write in this blog!

Hopefully, I'll meet more of my Flickr photo contacts out there. Yesterday, as I stood up from getting a shot of a Needham's skimmer perched low in the grass, I heard someone shout out . . . "You just missed this caracara." And there was Terry, whose company I enjoyed for a bit of a stroll along the edge of the Orlando Wetlands.

Keep your eyes open and your aperture your priority! Wave and say "Hello" to that gray-haired lady with the Olympus; she'd love to meet you.

Sometimes I feel . . .

2009 was a difficult year, as I lost both my mother and my very dearest friend. I'm certain that these people are gone from my life forever, and I do not believe I will see them in a "hereafter."

My comfort, then, comes in understanding that the death of a human being is no more or less signifcant than the death of any living thing; the parts wear out or the body becomes fodder for microscopic organisms in fulfillment of their life cycles. And all recycles, sooner or later, in the life cycle of the universe that surrounds us.

How very sad it is, that we have developed the ability to rely on emotional connections, to contemplate loss, to feel the absence of loved ones, and thus to grieve the emotional emptiness a death leaves behind. . .