Wayne's Blog: BIRDS & PIGS

A Florida scrub jay, glowing lapis-blue in the late-afternoon sunshine, was the perfect end to a perfect day of birding. For a short time, all was well in the world.

That was, of course, shortly before I learned that Trump had appointed another pig to his circus of freaks, John Bolton. So much for my fantasy.

Speaking of feral swine, this morning we saw a really big boar wading in the marsh near Cape Canaveral. My birding partner, Rick, thought it weighed a thousand pounds, but I don't really know. The big pig acted like he was king of the swamp. He and his kind, in reality, are out-of-place vermin that are wrecking the environment and everything they touch. Like, you know…

My Florida birding with Rick was the main reason I came on this four-week, cross-country jaunt. He and I have had a few birding adventures together since he retired some years back. Now we're doing it again in the marshes and lakes near Cape Canaveral. Our first day was a bonanza of beautiful birds: great flocks of white pelicans, white and glossy ibis, all varieties of herons, and hard-to-identify shorebirds.

I told him ahead of time that on this trip, the birding wasn't about getting a big list. Instead, it was about sharing quality time with quality birds in quality places. So far, so good.

Today, before we knew it, the sun was low and it was time to go home and eat Chinese food and watch basketball. But first, we took one last little drive in the wildlife refuge to search for the elusive Florida scrub jay.

Leaning on a wooden gate leading to the closed-off nesting area of the jays, I said to Rick, "At home, when I make this pishing sound, they fly right in. Pissh, pissh!"

Perfectly on cue, a jay swooped in out of nowhere, landed on a branch not fifteen feet away, and stared at us. We watched each other for quite a while.

Even though they look a lot like the scrub jays we have out West, Florida scrub jays are a separate species. Only about 10,000 of them still exist, which is why they have membership in the Endangered Species Club of America.