And the Birds Came

I am on the beach at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and I have been quietly watching a fisherman catching and processing two Florida pompano. 

There followed a perfect lion kill tableau, complete with marauding hyenas and jackals, all disguised as a fisherman and a few innocent-looking Florida beach birds.

I got down on my knees and shot and shot quickly as the birds quarreled over the pompano carcasses. Macabre? Perhaps, but no more than my own species’ quick rendering of a beating heart and frantic eye into freezable filets.

First and boldest is the ruddy turnstone, here in winter plumage. I adore turnstones, smart opportunistic little brawlers that they are. They aren’t afraid to challenge a gull ten times their size if good food is at stake. 

While a ring-billed gull chokes down a morsel of fish, the turnstone darts in.

A ringbill tugs at a fish’s entrails as a boat-tailed grackle sizes up its chances of joining in. The low-angle evening light lends an epic quality to the tableau, with small hillocks in the sand reading as a dunescape.

The scene constantly changes from one carcass to the other. A laughing gull strides up to scatter the turnstones and a lone sanderling. I’m intrigued by the gull’s posture; it adopts the head-tossing, hunch-backed profile of a juvenile begging from its parent. Odd—is it begging the turnstones for a chance at the pompano? Does the sight of food just set off this juvenile behavior in a mature bird?

 A ring-billed gull swoops in and holds forth over a carcass.

It'll have to get what it can before the boat-tailed grackle steals it.

The ringbill manages to free some food before a herring gull and then a great black-backed gull swoop down and end its picnic.

Not many birds argue with a great black-backed gull, pirate of the sea. The herring gull manages to hold it off for awhile

until a young great-black-backed joins in.

and when they are done there are fragments, just enough for the boat-tailed grackles

little black coroners, pronouncing the pompano dead at last. Oh how I love this shot.

Used up, all the way up, by Homo sapiens, who took the lion's share,

 followed by four species of gull, two shorebirds and an icterid. Eight species all feasting on a silvery lavender blue pompano rimmed in lemon yellow

who only minutes before had been swimming in light surf on a warm evening on Cape Canaveral

whose eyes looked into mine and found me unable to help

but willing to swallow hard and document its final hour.

The fisherman packed up and went home, pompano filets swinging in a grocery bag

leaving me amazed and standing on an empty beach

wondering at the circle of life and death, the beauty of fresh food from the sea, hand-caught;

the stories in every little thing that happens,


 which are there to be shared by the spirit

left open to the thrust of grace.*

I turned back to find my children still playing in the same warm surf

and walked back to join them


rinsed clean 

thinking about everything and nothing at all.

                                                                                                       *Bruce Cockburn, of course.

A High Use for Fritos

So engrossed was I in learning about osprey molt that I lost track of my kids. Bill Webb tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out the dike road. 

"Look at Baby Zick."

Well, will you lookit that. Liam had taken it upon himself to raid our precious Frito stash for a bunch of panhandling boat-tailed grackles. I broke into a huge grin. 

What's not to love about boat-tailed grackles? Big and shiny beautiful they are, with melodious, metallic clanking calls that instantly evoke south Texas for me. They're bold innovators, smart as little crows.

Finding the Fritos a bit dry, they were taking them down to the water to soak them awhile before trying to break them up and swallow them.

This was not lost on Liam, who found their Frito processing quite charming. They reciprocated by performing some terrific dominance displays to each other.

I have the Frito and you don't. I am the Frito Bandito.

I take your Frito and raise you a Cheeto, you knave.

Liam kept the corn chips coming. He hoped they would eventually take them from his hand, if he was patient enough.

Hello, young lady. Liam was kind enough to give me a Frito. I noticed a familial resemblance between you two, so I'm just stopping by to see if you have anything edible up there on the bench.

Baby Zick indeed. He's showing excellent wild bird etiquette here, keeping his scary flapping extremities tucked, staying still and small, and facing away from the birds. None of this I've had to teach him; he just gets it. So does his sister. 

Given time, I'm sure they'd feed from his sweet hand.

Webb just emailed me, asking if I find ever spider webs that say "SOME KIDS!" 

 Alla time.