Take a walk with me
Dawn finds us walking into the Sabal Palm sanctuary. The woods are alive with the calls of birds, you can hear the Plain Chachalacas over all of them. The Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks sit above us on top of the few dead palm trees. You can see their bright beaks glowing in the sunrise through the dense vegetation.

For a moment it feels like we are in the primeval forest, alive around us. The energy of spring is contagious and it fills us. You can smell the humid forest floor below us as we step. It is the warm scent of ripe earth filled with the possibility of life. This place is alive with its density and we go forward with all of our senses alert.

The green jay dances for his mate, fluffing out his chest. He jumps quickly branch to branch coming in and out of view.






















The clay colored sparrow hops up on a high branch and sings. He is holding his territory as he serenades us. The sun is rising and it slices through the palm fronds, creating pools of light.
























The golden-fronted woodpecker is also calling above us. His call sounds like a burrr burrr and he flies across the path. He almost looks like he is diving and then catches himself, dives again and then he flies up to the top of a palm.
























Suddenly we see the bright yellow of the Couch's Kingbird. He looks down at us with curiosity as we pass.

All too soon the walk ends, remember it. The smells, the sounds, the way the sunlight makes the palms look like giant fans. The breeze that brings the smell of earth to us, the dancing butterflies that fly up as we pass. Remember the spiders that dangle above us as if they are hanging in the air. Remember the white-tailed kites displaying in the early morning air, soaring over us. Tomorrow is coming and this forest has a very short time line to exist. Someone will fence us out and bulldoze it, for the sake of chasing the ghost of fear. At what cost? I cannot help but fight tears as we leave and wonder what kind of world we are returning to.