Nature is busy. Each day brings their hellos.
Early mornings have been starting with Red-bellied Woodpecker drumming. Gutter then on Sabal Palm leaves. The sound difference invites me to notice little things.
Let me remember to look out and up like the woodpecker.
This is your sweet alarm clock, wet from the morning dew.
My camera lens chases Red-Bellied across the pond to a Live Oak tree.
A few photos and then, another bird call from that tree! A Great Crested Flycatcher. A pair. Singing to each other (and to us).
Mid-morning Betty and Selma sent an alert. Otters! Today, eight of them several times during the day. Such tussling about.
Here are four of six in what appears to be one family. (At the same time, downstream, another two swim through the grate to cross under Oak Street to the big pond.)
An adult otter watches them. A penny for your thoughts parent of these?
My thought is that the parents can't corral the little ones into the den. Maybe.
A little later, Mike, a neighbor across the pond calls to me and points to the top of a tree in the butterfly garden. "An American Bald Eagle perched there just a little while ago," he said.
"Can you believe all the wildlife around right now?" a friend asks. I pause and wonder if the more is really about how often we are stepping outside to look out and up. A positive to this unlike-ever-before time in our lives.
I feel so fortunate to live here.
