The Big Chill

I love winter in Florida!

North Florida is kind of invisible to most people. When people think of Florida, they think of palm trees and flamingos. Friends and family are flummoxed when I tell them that Gainesville is closer to Atlanta than to Miami. And that it gets frickin' cold here.

Like the last few weeks, for example. Temps plummeted into the teens at night and barely hit the forties during the day. There were rumors that we might get snow (we didn't). But we did get cold. Very cold.

On a Saturday walk at La Chua, Glenn and I found out the hard way that it was even colder out than it looked. Alachua Sink and the surrounding streams, normally rippling with the movement of fish, water snakes, and alligators, were oddly still. Big, clear, sheets of ice covered the streams, and Common Moorhens and American Coots skidded awkwardly over them. Other birds, like this Grackle, went about their business near the edges of the ice:

A lot of birds were feeding closer to the trail than normal. Wood Storks, usually visible only at a long distance from the observation tower at the end of the trail, were foraging in large numbers only feet away from us:

Even odder were the dozens of Turkey Vultures congregating on the islands in the water just off the trail; I'd only rarely seen them there before. It didn't take long for us to figure out why they were there: the icy water was filled with stiff, frozen fish, done in by the cold:

And a great feast was had by all!

Except, of course, for the fish. And the alligators, who were apparently too cold to even put in an appearance that day.

There was no doubt a lot more to see on that cold Saturday, but after a few hours out, my fingers were almost completely numb. By the time we got back to the car, I could barely feel or hold onto the car keys in my pocket. Even after an hour indoors scarfing down an excellent (and hot!) deep-dish pizza, our toes were STILL cold. We wondered if we had frostbite, something neither of us had experienced before. And I wondered how I'd explain to people that I had lost my toes from frostbite suffered while hiking through a swamp in Florida.

Just another gorgeous winter day in our little slice of paradise, somewhat north of the tropics.

And Then There Was One

Where it began: Wood Storks at Lake Wauberg, by the southern end of Paynes Prairie.

This is a story of life and loss, and it began and ended this morning at Lake Wauberg.

I've been meaning the check the place out for a while, and this morning I finally did. After paying the $3 admission fee at the main entrance to Paynes Prairie State Park (one of the things that had been keeping me away—yes, I'm that cheap), I drove slowly towards the lake, slowing down to watch herds of deer grazing by the side of the road.

I parked the car and birded the wooded area by the parking lot before heading to the water. I found a loud feeding flock filled with scolding Carolina Wrens and a good mix of warblers: a couple of Black and Whites, a Yellow-throated, and an Ovenbird.

The boardwalk trail by the edge of the lake was beautiful: right off the boardwalk were the two Wood Storks above, calmly preening at the water's edge. Double-crested Cormorants and Pie-billed Grebes dove in and out of the water, and flocks of White Pelicans were everywhere:

At the far end of the boardwalk was a grassy picnic area, where I saw two Bald Eagles flying overhead, and several Wild Turkeys on the ground. Here's one of them:

The Wild Turkey was one of my nemesis birds when I first moved out here. My weekly near-miss encounters with them invariably went something like this:

OTHER BIRDER: Oh look! Wild Turkeys!
ME: Oh wow, where??
OTHER BIRDER: RIght over--oops, now they're gone.

Now I can't complain any more.

On the way back over the boardwalk, I spotted a Marsh Wren and a Swamp Sparrow in the marshy area at the lake's edge. There were also a couple of noisy catbirds, eating berries and harassing each other. Here's one of them.

And then there were the Wood Storks again. One of them was in pretty much the same area where I had left him about 45 minutes before. But the other?

All that remained was a single wing, lying on top of the water, to the left of the surviving bird. I'm guessing he or she became breakfast for some hungry alligator—the Wood Storks seem too big for the local raptors to take out.

And the remaining Wood Stork? Still there, doing what it has to do. He or she has obviously moved on.

Nature's life lessons can be ugly, but they bear repeating. Treasure the fleeting gift that is your life. Don't waste time looking backwards.

And pay attention to those "No Swimming" signs at Lake Wauberg. They're there for a good reason.