New Life at the Beach

The killdeer is just to the left of the single orange cone.

A nervous killdeer hovers near her nest of three eggs in the parking lot at Honeymoon Island State Park.

Two delightful things happened during this week: a loggerhead turtle swam ashore, made her way up the beach to the high water line, scooped a hole in the sugar-fine sand, and dropped a clutch of eggs into the nest. She covered up the eggs and made her way back to the Gulf of Mexico… all before the dawn broke.

A ranger discovered the distinctive marks of her flippers in the sand, the first time this has occurred in Honeymoon Island State Park in two years. After consulting with the park botanist, it was decided the eggs needed to be moved farther inland by 25 yards so they would have a better chance to hatch in the next 57 days.

In the process, the rangers have installed a protective mesh enclosure so raccoons can’t invade the nest and steal the eggs. The tiny hatchlings will have a hard enough time surviving when they break into this world in just under two months.

And the very same week, a killdeer (that’s a small bird with a couple of stripes around its head) decided that the Oasis parking lot was the “perfect” place to lay her eggs. She picked a high spot in the grassy verge. She scraped a slight indentation in the rocky soil and plunked down three eggs with black and white spots on them.

The rangers have put orange cones up in the parking lot to provide a tiny amount of protection for this momma. When I drive through the parking lot, I stop to watch her spreading her wings as she sits on the eggs, protecting them from the heartless beating down of the brutal sun. She also has to worry about marauding gulls which might see the three eggs as a delightful appetizer.

Last night, Jo came with me on my final rounds of the night and we photographed the killdeer as she hopped off her nest and trotted round the nearby parking lot. We sat very still. In a minute, her mate arrived on the scene. He danced around for a few seconds. She darted over to him. He mounted her and had a quicky coitus and then flew off. Mmmm. Interesting behavior, old boy.

Late last week, we had a wicked storm pound the park and the neighborhood. Much rain fell and the angry Gulf of Mexico was roiling with the wind, casting up destructive waves on the shore. I had stopped on my morning rounds to enjoy this angry version of Mother Nature at her best… and worst.
I was carrying our iPad and, while I sat there on the shore, I was moved to write these words:

Be still, my heart, and listen to the surging sea.
She pushes forward, surging and sucking, surging and sucking.
She knows just how far she can come. Up and onto the land. Wave one, then two, three and four. A small retreat. But waves five, six and seven push in, inexorably, and here comes the eighth wave, pounding and spreading  its foaming richness. Now retreat for nine and ten. A pause for eleven, twelve and thirteen. A small retreat, just a moment, then with a great heaving and sighing, in comes the fourteenth wave, pushed ever onward by a bustling and almost angry fifteenth. A sigh. A moment to catch its pounding breath. And now the cycle begins again.
Be still my heart and listen to the insistent roar. Does it come for me? No. It is unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring. It is the never-ending sea.