When a friend of mine posted a photo of this on Facebook, I had kind of hoped it was fake. But I got on the F train this morning and saw these ads plastered all over. Long past the window of hope for April Fools’ Day – and in plenty of time for opening day- I present to you New York Yankees fragrance. “Past. Present. Forever.” (I think that refers to how long the jockstrap odor lingers.)
*vomits*
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Last summer, while a group of us were swimming in the pool of water located under the waterfall below our house (yes, I realize how lucky I am that I can say that), one of my friends dove deep under the water and quickly bobbed up, proclaiming he saw what appeared to be a dead snake hovering on the rocks.
At the time, we kind of chuckled and blew it off. Why would a dead snake not float up? Must have been an optical illusion.
The American Eel, aka Anguilla rostrata (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A few weeks later, we hiked back down and this time, I brought a swimming mask. I dove down, and whoaaaaaaaa.
There were several long, gray creatures lazily floating in the water, looking at back with me. With eel eyes, eel faces, eel bodies.
Eels?
Yes, eels!
Growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast, I had *no* idea there was such a thing as freshwater eels. I had snorkeled in the ocean and seen firsthand the very beautiful stripe-y zebra eel off the coast of Oaxaca. But eels in…rivers? Was this some freaky genetic event going on in our river?
No, I’m happy to report: Lo and behold, it was the American Eel. After a bit of internet research, I decided wow, I need to learn more, so I read the strangely fantastic book: Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish.
Why the most “mysterious?” No one knows where the American Eel — and similar “catadromous” species — spawn. The best guess is somewhere out near Puerto Rico. Then, the babies, known as glass eels, feverishly head for freshwaters, swimming up rivers like the Hudson, eventually working their way up farther and farther upstream, landing into the smaller brooks and creeks that feed into the larger rivers. They can absorb oxygen through their skin, so therefore have no problem slithering on to dry land as they make their way up the creeks.
Once they find a suitable spot, they stop searching and make little eel homes, living in one spot for decades, until finally deciding to venture back to the ocean, migrating, going back the way they came. The eels I spotted in our river were mature eels, like the one pictured in this post.
In some areas in and around the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, fishermen build eel weirs — special v-shaped traps — to catch the eels as they migrate back to the sea, and post-hurricane is the best time to catch them. So I knew that after the extremely high waters caused by Hurricane Irene in the fall, our eels were likely leaving their roosts, and heading to their secret ocean love hotels.
But would any come back? Did the dirty, debris-filled floods kill many of them? What will this year be like?
These are hardy creatures, it turns out. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation is reporting a record breaking year for returning baby glass eels! Hooray!
“The eels arrived a month earlier and in far greater numbers than they have since the project started in 2008,” the DEC reported in a press release.
Now, all I have to do is wait a few months, so I can swim down and look at my new eels, who yes, will all get their own names, and possibly be photographed and documented extensively on this very blog.
(Live in the Hudson Valley and want to help count eels? Join the NY DEC’s Citizen Science American Eel Research project.)
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My Aunt Martha shipped me some awesome items from my uncle Steven‘s expansive rock-and-roll collection, including all of his Bowie on vinyl. I miss my uncle often, and this means so much to have these things of his now that he’s gone to the great Hard Rock Cafe in the sky. Plus: Bowie.
Bowie's Changes album, and Heroes. Two of his finest.
I’m happy to share that the magazine Mexico Desconocido – which roughly translates as “Mexico Undiscovered” — published three of my photos in their upcoming April issue. I haven’t seen the full magazine yet, but it looks like my photos ran as part of a larger article on “paraisos rusticos” (rustic paradises). The photos are from our trip to Oaxaca in 2008. We spent a couple of days in the capital city, then made the twisty, stomach-content-churning drive up over the Sierra Madre mountains and down the rugged, spectacular coastline, staying at the isolated eco-resort of Bahia de la Luna. That’s Brendan there kayaking (and this is the second time I’ve had a photo published of my husband kayaking. The other one was in the Westchester (NY) Journal-News, and he was holding a paddle on a little island in Connecticut’s Housatonic River.)
Here’s pagina 35, sent to me by Graphics Editor David Paniagua, who found my Flickr set of photos. Now, if I can just GO BACK. 
It’s always great when a bird species on the brink of extinction, headed that way anyway, returns to flourish. One such species is the Wood Stork, (Mycteria americana) also commonly known as Flinthead, Wood Ibis, Wood Pelican or Colorado Turkey. Wood Storks are found along the coastal areas of South Carolina, Georgia and Central and Southern Florida. Wood Storks were listed as an “endangered species” since 1984 due to the severe drop in population in the 1900’s.
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Only had my crappy camera phone to capture the migration! (Note: These are suspected common loons, but I’m not totally sure. I hope to return with my real camera and zoom lens.)
The oft-sandy gopher tortoise.
Last week we made our triumphant return to Little Gasparilla Island, which we visited last year and basically fell in love with. This island, located on the Gulf of Mexico about two hours south of Tampa, is car- and business-free. As a result, nature thrives. My handwritten list (because I’m that dorky) of wild animal sightings includes manatees, osprey, snakes, armadillos, starfish, stingrays, herons eating mullets, lizards…well, you get the idea.
Last year, though, we didn’t see one of the prized species — the gopher tortoise. Large and land-dwelling, the gopher tortoise, I was told, could allegedly be seen lumbering around the island, emerging from its vast burrow during the heat of the day, and gingerly crossing the sandy paths that are considered “roads” on the island. I kept my eyes peeled but no tortoises. Sadness.
This year, though: wow! Every day I saw numerous tortoises, ranging from small (about the size of of a volleyball) to large (about the size of a mid-sized watermelon). And I often sighted dark, black sleek snakes nearby. Turns out this is not coincidental: The large burrow of the gopher tortoise is renowned for housing not just the tortoise itself, but numerous other species, especially the indigo snake. This makes it a keystone species – meaning that its existence is enormously helpful to many other creatures.
The gopher tortoise is the Florida state tortoise, and a protected endangered species. I feel honored to have spent my vacation amid such cute, special reptiles. Who, notably, are not shy and let me film them with my iPhone:
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Sea grapes in the foreground, turquoise Gulf of Mexico in the back. Yes, please.
It is tempting to sunbathe until I turn into a small, shriveled, happy-in-the-sun raisin.
Can't. Stop. Shelling.
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Cars are not allowed on Florida’s Little Gasparilla Island, except for the local power company’s one-truck fleet, which is parked not far from our beach house rental. This wittle birdy found it handy. If I had a birding book handy, I’d look up the species (tsk tsk).
Meanwhile, let’s Put a Bird on It.
To the left, to the left...
To the right, to the right.
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These carp-like fish were swimming in a large (and rather dumb) school by the docks on Little Gasparilla Island. We think they're juvenile tarpon, the prized game fish of Florida. Editor's update: nope, Captain Emmit of Pirate's Water Taxi confirmed they are actually mullet, which I didn't realize got so big!
This frequent surfacing makes them vulnerable to all sorts of predators. Cue scary music!
Docks make such handy heron hunting grounds.
Oh noes! I looked away for one second and turned back to see this mullet crossing the sweet rainbow bridge, where he will soon join his fallen brethren in mullet heaven, located down the tunnel of heron.
The heron can only claim victory if he can fend off this prancy-pants double-crested cormorant from stealing his lunch. (Heron won, but of course he had to duck his head behind the piling when he swallowed the mullet, forbidding me from getting photographic evidence.) If you enlarge this photo, you can see everything in vivid, bloody detail...
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Here on Florida’s Little Gasparilla Island, if you hear a terrifying shrieking from high above, and notice a quick shadow move over you, relax – it’s not the aliens invading. It’s just the omnipresent osprey. Wait a minute, and it will likely swoop down and land near you, to rest on a tree branch so it can rip apart its latest catch. It could care less if you photograph it, too:
I watched this osprey use its powerful jaws to pull apart its meal, located somewhere in its talons, hidden by the branch (presumably it was a fish, for that's all they basically eat). While a fearless fish hunter, this bird-of-prey is downright conservative in its sexual mores, preferring to mate for life.
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I have absolutely nothing against Floridians–I get why they live here. The place is amazing. Wildlife is everywhere. It just blows my mind. And so, why not give it back? Do we really need to be in and on this peninsula?
Maybe it should become just a place we visit, not a place we live.
Sorry, I’ve got one day of vacation left, and I’ve been so immersed in and enamored by the wildlife of Southern Central Florida that I am caught up envisioning what it could be, if boats didn’t strike manatees, if the glow of night lights didn’t disorient sea turtle hatchlings, if monofilament fishing line didn’t strangle birds. If we left Florida, it wouldn’t take long for it to go really wild. So let’s leave and make the whole state a nature reserve.
Something to share with our kids, and their kids…and so on.
A girl can dream, no? Here’s what I saw on my first day in Florida, while the husband bought groceries and I walked the dog around a small pond by the grocery store.
Peer closely along the shoreline of this person's front yard. You can click this photo to embiggen.
This is gator country, front yard or not. I took this photo from a GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT. The lighter stripes on this 5-footer indicates it's still a baby. A baby!
This oddly shaped waterbird, called an anhinga, was to the left of the gator, fishing. Let's see it really stretch that neck...
That beak looks perfect for spearing fish. Or fending off baby gators.
Thank goodness for the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which passed way back in 1972. Before then, harbor seals were killed simply because they competed with the fish stock for humans. Now, thanks to MMPA, they’re coming back, feasting on herring and hanging out at tiny Swinburne Island and Hoffman Island just off the Verrazano Bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Princess Cruises runs winter weekend trips to these man-made islands, which were built back in the 1800s to house sick immigrants. It’s a bit of a haul to get to Riis Point near Rockaway Beach (a car is basically essential), but well worth the $25, especially if, like me, you love to see wild seals frolicking within distance of the Statue of Liberty and one of the world’s most human-filled areas. The side bonus to going on one of these cruises is that they support data collection on the local seal population, allowing naturalist (and seal enthusiast) Paul Sieswerda to keep track of how the pinnipeds are doing (which include not just harbor seals, but also grey, ringed, harp and hooded seals).
The risk, though, is you have no idea how many seals you will see — nor whether they’ll be hauled out for a full-body view or swimming and bobbing up and down in the distance, watching you watching them. While we saw a lot of seals today (or so it seemed like) most were very far away. Still, I got a few good shots thanks to my extreme zoom lens.
The trip takes you right by Coney Island and the Wonder Wheel.
Creepy Swinburne Island, home to decrepit buildings and probably the ghosts of immigrants. That's Staten Island in the background.
Seal! Seal!
Amiga Diana on the first floor of the boat, watching seals.
Probably my best photo of the seals.
Here, they're turned around, watching the gull. The gulls are notorious for stealing the herring from the seals.
A seal in the rays of sun. See his whiskers?
Also: ducks.
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He was flying above our boat, which was toodling around New York Harbor, searching for harbor seals (more on that soon).
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