It’s still early spring, botanically speaking, in the Okefenokee Swamp. I had hoped to see legions of blooming pitcher plants, as I have on visits past, but very few are flowering on the last weekend in March. Jeff and I are paddling with one of my oldest swamp companions, Bob Knight, and his wife, Debbie Segal, from the Florida Springs Institute in Gainesville. We four are all activists and lovers of nature–three scientists and one writer—eager for wilderness renewal. … Continue
3:15 pm, March 20, 2015 It’s spring equinox, almost to the minute. For north Floridians, that means maximum flowering (azalea, fringe tree, dogwood, buckeye, wild iris, columbine); maximum birdsong (parula warbler, goldfinch, brown thrasher, cedar waxwing); and unprecedented pollen. Birth and creation in so many forms! Beauty abounds! I personally am experiencing a full measure of spring fruition and joy. Five boxes of Coming to Pass were just delivered to our home by my friend, the UPS man. The creation … Continue
We are headquartered this week in Boulder, Utah, spending a spring lit break in a wilderness very different from home. Every day we hike 8 or 9 miles of canyon wash or rocky outcrop in Escalante or Capitol Reef. Silence defines. I hear only sounds I make. The shush-shush of my boots over pink desert sand. The creak of my pack frame. The zip of a pocket knife through an avocado we share. The rocks make no comment. My … Continue
Every winter sunrise, a mated pair of highly endangered whooping cranes rises from an unremarkable cow pond on the edge of Tallahassee. Prompted by the light, they stretch their vast pearl wings and take flight. In the privacy of the undeveloped wetlands and fields of the eastern county, they forage, dance and preen. Most evenings, the two birds return to the safety of the same shallow pond. Most nights. But whether they do or they don’t, Karen Willes will … Continue
The writing of Coming to Pass: Florida’s Islands in a Gulf of Change began on October 22, 2007, when I inscribed a fat black journal with a single word–COAST–and then cut out pictures to decorate it. I didn’t know what this book would become back then. In 2007, I was trying to reconcile my roles. Mother and stepmother to three sons growing out and away. Daughter of an aging father needing a good deal of my help. … Continue
Occupy Sandbar: That’s what shorebirds do, because only on the edges of our coastline can they live. Last week, birders and biologists all over Florida put their binoculars together to see how the original snowbirds are doing on their wintering grounds (which we mostly think of as “our” beaches and sandbars). It’s called the statewide Winter Shorebird Survey. My assigned territory required a kayak trip about a mile off shore to a set of linear, mostly submerged sandbars in Franklin … Continue
A really good contradance is the closest I’ve come to flying in a flock of shorebirds. In this kind of dance, you and your partner move with another couple through a series of figures with evocative names like Mad Robin, Box the Gnat, California Twirl, Ocean Wave, and Hey for Four. What transforms a contra from a series of rote steps to a transcendent experience is the ability of the group to synchronize. You need a room full of people … Continue
The light is changing now, do you see it? Each day, the sun moves higher into the architecture of the trees’ bare branches as it travels across the sky. During the brief interval that our deciduous trees are still properly naked, I like to spend time with the unimpeded night sky—Orion sprawls overhead, and brilliant Jupiter rises in the east after sunset. But pure winter, if we ever had it, is nearly over. January brings complicated weather to North Florida. Cold fronts … Continue
Last week I went searching for evidence of Florida black bears down along our coast. They are shy creatures, generally night-dwelling. I always watch for them, though, and as the poet Mary Oliver says “…everywhere I look on the scratchy hillsides, shadows seem to grow shoulders.” I walked in places I know they forage and walk. I found acorns they hadn’t yet eaten on the side of the road. I saw scat they had left in the … Continue
January is off to a bitter cold start in the panhandle of Florida. Along highway 98, I watch the north wind shove sea water off the shallows of Apalachee Bay. It is low tide: the influential waning moon bares the bay bottom even further.Is it my imagination, or does the sand appear to shiver? Shorebirds have fled for shelter along the backside of the islands. Thousands of scaup and redhead ducks raft tightly in the thin water. A good day … Continue