The swallow-tailed kite

As I started this blog I wrote that I will often wonder what it will become (1st entry).   Thus making an honest admission that I didn't know what I was doing.  I didn't have any expectations or a plan, but I did have something to say.  I was curious to see how I would express it. 

For now, my blog has become an commentary on the features within the natural world that I feel have a certain magic.  As with most, if not all, nature writers I hope my contributions inspire a greater reverence toward a deeper stewardship of this beautiful world.

That being said,  the swallow-tailed kite provides the magic of which I speak  in an undeniable fashion.  

I take pictures of the kites everytime I see them in the sky;  Lots of pictures - good ones, bad ones, better ones.  One day while driving I saw a group of about 10 kites working a field together.   Almost startled by them, I quickly pulled a u-turn coming back to an aerial ballet.  Here are some of the images from that 30 minute spellbinding experience. 

They were after a swarm of bugs or something in the grass; swooping about and diving toward the ground.

For me, at this point , spellbound is not an exageration.  The ease at which the kites carve a path through the sky is an amazing ability.  Just a tiny, almost impercebtible, tilt of their adept tail sends them on a significant course alteration - as if by a natural and very real magic.  (where is the video BDay??)

  Amazing, they are -  truly, truly the otters of the sky.

To torque that tail and jet after your quarry -  swoosh!   These maurauders snatch their food on the fly.  Biologists use the term "gleaners" to categorize their feeding habit.  After the snatch  they eat on the fly too.   

The swallow tailed kite -  a truly inspring creature.  Remaining suspended in flight for long periods with no perceptible movement.  Radically changing trajectory as if by commanding the wind to adjust.  So adept, so quiet, so agile within the stillness of their effortless grace.  A person need only stare at them in flight for a few moments be fixated on their grace.  Making self-evident that the affairs of humans are not the sole, central theme of our time here on earth.   Rick Scott can you hear me ?! 

 
   

The crookedwood tree

One of my favorite trees is the crookedwood, Lyonia Ferruginea,  Rusty Lyonia, also sometimes known as stagger bush.  I had to do some research to discover the proper name.  ( I had always wrongly called it devilwood).  My friend Bruce had tried to (helpfully) correct me so I looked it up.

The tree -  is in a word beautifully graceful.  It curves and flows in the most amazing shapes that can only be found in the random rhythms of the natural world.  Images of the tree often confuse the eye.

Crookedwood is at home in the scrub. I took all of the pictures here in the Ocala National Forest which is near my home in Ocala, (FL).  

The literature indicates that the crookedwood tree reaches 10 to 20 feet so this is a full grown tree.

It is the growing habit of this ballet dancer of the forest that fascinates me.  Graceful.  Crookedwood tree trunks are a valued forest product in the fake plant industry.  Trunks are harvested at 4 to 6 feet long then wired up with plastic leaves.   The trunks can't be massed produced so crookedwood cutting has become a resource extraction industry.    Selective cutting probably has minimal ecosystem damage

What forces of nature guide the pattern or the path?  Random?  Functional design?  Who knows?  Again I wonder if it's a little strange that I have a fixation with the lowly lyonia.  If you took a hike with me I am pretty sure I could make you understand.

hummingbirds

I was paddling one beautiful afternoon along the Silver River taking pictures of those cypress knees and I got sidetracked at a special place.  I landed my kayak by a  cypress stand with a field of Cardinal flower  lobelia cardinalis.

Knowing that cardinal flower is a favorite source of nectar for hummingbirds I decided to sit still for awhile.

 

It wasn't long, or maybe it was (I lost track of time)  before I was rewarded with a visit from the little magical birds.  There were several buzzing each other and flitting about from flower to flower in a ballet all their own. 

The flowers were sparkling like swamp jewels in the sunlight.

Time had been suspended and I sat for what seemed like a long time as the cypress swamp was pulsing with life.  Just like the otters,  hummingbirds know they are cool and can back it up.

the dragon tree

My fascination with trees is known by many but not always understood.  But how can anyone not be impressed by the dragon tree.

Unbelievable -  great tree.

the dragon tree -  not to be trifled with.

my friend 

The Volusia Oak

There is an old oak tree standing as a silent sentinal on the banks of the St Johns River at the Astor Bridge (SR 40).   I have been driving past this tree for many years and always give it a nod as I pass.  

I don't know exactly how old it is but three hundred  years is not a stretch.  The tree commands respect on its own right.

In 1562 a French Huguenot colony was established at the present site of Astor on the St. Johns River. The entire colony was wiped out by the Spanish is 1566 and a mission was established. While Exploring the St. John's River in early 1596, Don Pedro  Menendez made the following notes into his diary: "We found the third village of the savages on the West bank, halfway between a very big lake and a smaller one farther up stream on a likable spot in the shade of formidable trees.  John Bartram and his son William spent time here in 1765. William Bartram came back in 1774. In his subsequent book "TRAVELS", William Bartram devoted 72 pages to describing the area in vivid and colorful detail, such as "this blessed land where the gods have amassed into one heap all the flowering plants, birds, fish and other wildlife of two continents in order to turn the rushing streams, the silent lake shores and the awe-abiding woodlands of this mysterious land into a true garden of eden." Moses Levy established a plantation and colony for persecuted European Jews here. but it was burned down in 1838 during the 2nd Seminole War.

Soldiers of the second seminole war always camped under the oak.  This was actually the historic location of Fort Barnwell, Fort Columbia and Fort Call. ( across the river was Fort Butler)  .

You can see the St Johns River bridge in the background.  This place is a historic river crossing since the big slow Welaka River (river of lakes) is not wide here. It didn't become the St Johns until the British occupation. 

This is a big tree .  It's shelter is very inviting.

Over the many years the Volusia Oak has graced us with abundant shade and oxygen. As we know Oxygen and shade are two of the best of all things.

Stand tall big tree.  You are one of my favorites and deserve the respect of all from the past and in the future.  Ahhh . . . The stories you could tell.

  

Cypress knees I have known

I paddled on the Silver River with friends today and was reminded of a series of cypress knee pictures I took  a onth ago.  The Silver has been a haven for power boats for many years causing severe bank erosion and exposing of  cypress roots.  Here they are enjoy.

Some are beaten and battered by the years.  They look to be haunted.

other knees are more graceful.

The knees grow out from the mother tree to help her roots breathe and form little villages.  I like to think that this is a condo for little faeries and sprites and wood nymphs and other nature spirits.  ( you don't have to believe in them to appreciate that the faeries would like to live here)

Sooo .   . . . I was snapping lots of pics on this day.  turned out to be a quest for odd looking knees.

I was out on the silver for about 8 hours and only made it past the island.

Well . . .  the hunmingbirds had something to do with that  also as you will see in a future post.

Oh yes - the knees.

the above is my favorite because it has a little resurrection fern growing from the top.

below a crazy foot with a big wolf spider on the tallest toe

Am I a little off for enjoying the knees so much?

Maybe so   . . . .   but in a good way  . . .  

Why are otters so Cool?

So here I was sitting in my kayak on Juniper Creek . . . early of a summer morn.  
I had aready cooked cups of coffee and warmed a bagel with my trusty jetboil camping stove. 
I had sat  . . . in stillness, . .  for a time watching the fish and taking pictures. 
That's a big gar in the center with bass in the foreground.

When suddenly. . .  I hear something in the brush . . .  and  . .

  its getting closer!

 

and out of the reeds pops a big otter.  He is the Mac Daddy otter, his head held high

with rippled muscles on his flanks and shoulders,

he surveys his kingdom and warily eyes me, the unforeseen intruder.

Cautious but unafraid he checks me out for a few.

(Actually, in the pic he is scratching his belly with his right foot and

 if you zoom in you can see a profile hint of male genitalia -  hence the Mac Daddy)

Satisfied I am not an immediate threat he decides to go about his business.

right at this point, he gives me a look . .

Now I don't understand otter-speak,  though I'm trying.

this guy is cool, and deliberate.  He doesn't like me.

But once he gets in the water he feels more at home.

He lightens up.  He's cool.

The expression from the safety of the water is more the curious otter look 

I see from most otters (which I translate as, "Are you a potential source of food?") 

He turns and he is gone.

I think otters are so amazingly cool because they are truly masters of their element. 

Their  movements grace effortless, as if needing only to will themselves to shape-shift through the water. Yet still, the curious otter belies a skillful, deadly hunter and pure carnivore.   

Maybe the fact that otters can hunt so well and move so adeptly,

allows them the opportunity to lighten up and raise thier level of awareness higher

than the simple mindset of subsistence and reproduction. 

Clearly they know they are cool and can back it up.