When it comes to being thankful I would be amiss if I didn’t mention Walter. He’s not exactly a new friend, he’s the young man I’ve talked with before while watching the sunrise at Aripeka. But now we’ve exchanged names and phone numbers, and that’s because he has had a recent encounter with One-Foot Fred. And he even took a picture! Be still my heart! I had mentioned Fred to him since he gets to a lot more sunrises in Aripeka than I do. I told him that Fred used to be on the bridge with me every time I was there, but then he disappeared. I don’t think I’d seen him for a year, but that includes time I wasn’t even in Florida. So I asked Walter if he’d ever seen Fred and he hadn’t, but I did tell him that I’ve been told by several fishermen that Fred still comes around now and then. So the minute Walter noticed that the heron he was watching only had one foot he knew it was Fred. I had only watched him as he posed for me on the bridge, but Walter watched him fishing. Fred would use his stub to take a step but would have to catch himself and balance as he landed on his other foot. Walter was impressed with his obvious adaptation to his new reality. Walter also mentioned that it’s probably lucky that herons stand in the shallow water and wait for lunch to come to them. He was pretty impressed with old Fred. I’m so happy to hear this news and know that Fred is okay, and so happy to have a picture also. Thanks Walter!
I walked around the lake, mostly because I saw all the birds across the way. But before I had gotten to taking pictures another walker stopped me to ask if I’d seen the duck on a nest. I hadn’t, I had walked right past it. He said there were four eggs there, and he and his daughters had just seen her rearrange the eggs and settle back down on them. I thought her nest was not very protected, even if getting a photo was a challenge.
I did get around to taking pictures of the birds, but it was the flowers and the bees that got me in trouble. I walked across the grass to get close enough to the flowers, but when I turned to go back to the car I found myself walking through wetness in the grass. In my flip flops. Mud. I’ve insisted that there is no mud in Florida, but I was wrong. This wasn’t just mud, it was more like tar, and it ended my travels for the day. I think I’m glad I didn’t have my hiking shoes on after all, they wouldn’t have survived. Flip flops, however, have at least nine lives.
And it was a successful trip. Yes, one of the birds in question did show up and zoom into the hole in the tree and disappeared. Not one of us got a shot of that. The leader of the trip said that he felt that that was it, the event was over. But he had one trick up his sleeve. He used his phone to play the call of the red-cockaded woodpecker, rather quietly I thought, but it was enough to get this little guy to stick his head out of the nest to see what was going on.
I began to wonder if I was more worried about four legged predators or two legged predators. I wondered if it’s legal to carry mace in Florida? But the reality was the only creature I did startle on the path was a partridge, or maybe it was a wild turkey. It disappeared into the thick bush too quickly for a photo. And I walked some more and began to hear traffic noises.
