Posted on

Snoopy’s

 Got our fish and chips fix.  It was cold, so no dinner on the deck.  We stayed warm by the fire. A great fireplace.  An old ship’s boiler cut apart, hung with chains, and vented out through the ceiling. Check out the floor mount. They like their classic outboard motors there.    They remind me of the old Mercury and Neptune outboards Dad had at Lake Wohlford.  As I recall, the Mercury had a cover, but the Neptune had the open top so you could wrap the start pull rope around the wheel.  Maybe something like this.  The older brothers might remember better.  They might have been old enough to actually drive the boat (if Dad would let them). We drove south from the cold wind on the beach and have returned to Sandpipers.  Tomorrow’s forecast high here is in the seventies.  
Posted on

Birding Center gator

 They say there is a gator in the pond at the Birding Center. They say it’s big. Really big. Most people never see it though. He doesn’t show himself very often. We saw him Sunday, looking right at us.  Then moving our direction.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHfviKQYALw&feature=related We backed off a little.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HrnoWEeRxg He swam right under the boardwalk at our feet.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtN_PV9AlUM And ended up with his nose sticking out the other side. He’s big.  10 feet?  12 feet? It was a great Gator moment.  
Posted on

Ducks suck

 These ducks, for example: They’re on the pond in front of our coach.  Obviously, they’re Redhead Ducks.  Their heads are kind of red.  Males look like this, (even though they’re not in our pond right now): The ones in the first photo are duller, so they must be females. But wait.  There are white scallops behind the bills.  Nonbreeding Female Scaup and Ringneck Ducks have that white scallop behind the bill; like this file photo: Redhead Ducks don’t, so theses ducks must be Lesser Scaup or Ringneck Ducks. Ringneck Ducks have a very pointed head, so it can’t be them. These must be female Lesser Scaup.  Their heads are kind of red and they have white on their face behind the bill. But wait another minute.  Lesser Scaup heads aren’t as pointed as a Ringneck Duck, but they still have a sharp spot on the back of the head.  These ducks don’t, their heads are round, so they must be Redhead Ducks. If only they didn’t all have that white on the face.  None of the books show white on Redhead Duck faces.  I wonder if Scaup and Redhead Ducks ever interbreed. They’re right out front of the coach.  We have the bird book in our hand.  How hard could it be? Yeah.  Ducks definitely suck.  
Posted on

Speaking of Snipe Hunts

 I took Judy on her first Grunion Hunt fifty years ago in Southern California.  We went to the beach late at night and walked along the shore.  Waves washed in, receded, in again.  Nothing but the unchanging rhythm of the waves.  Then, from one wave, with no warning, the sand was covered with glistening flashing silver.  Thousands of silverside baitfish, burrowing with their tails into the semi-fluid wave-washed sand.  The females come ashore at (almost) predictable times in spring and summer, during the full moon or new moon, at high tide, to lay their eggs as high up in the sand as they can.  The males join them to fertilize the eggs and they all wash back into the ocean on the next wave.  The spawning lasts about four hours on four consecutive days, then they’re gone.  A couple weeks later, the egg hatch corresponds to another high tide and out swims another generation of Grunion. It’s fun to go on a Grunion Hunt, not to catch them with your hands, which is the only legal way to take them, but just to watch.  It’s an amazing life-cycle, but Judy was even more amazed.  “What’s that?” she exclaimed.  I told her the wriggling mass on the beach were Grunion.  “Grunion?  I didn’t know there was really any such thing as Grunion!”  She said. She was humoring me.  She thought we were on another Snipe Hunt.  She thought a Grunion Hunt was just another excuse to go out on the beach in the dark and make out.