Eye of the Cormorant

another odd bird who chases fish.

Category: environment

  • Shadow Country

    I am enjoying Peter Matthiessen’s work of historic fiction, Shadow Country. The first third of the book, “Killing Mr. Watson”, takes place in my fishing & camping haunts in the Ten Thousand Islands of the Florida Everglades. The book centers on the life and legacy of Edgar J. Watson, a murderous homesteader with dreams of developing southwest Florida’s mangrove coastline. My travels through the Ten Thousand Islands and Big Cypress Swamp crisscross the paths of historic characters throughout the book.

    One incidental character in the story especially piques my interest. The French Ornithologist Jean Chevalier (also spelled Chevelier) lived on the shore of Opossum Key just south of Watson’s homestead on the Chatham River. Chevalier financed his scientific work by hunting egrets for their plumes and exhuming Calusa artifacts.

    Chevalier’s first Everglades guides were the Bradley boys. The horrific experience of killing nesting wading birds for their feathers led the youngest of these, Guy Bradley, to sign up as the first warden in Florida. Bradley was hired by the New York Audubon folks to guard South Florida’s remaining wading birds, which had just received protection under the new Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The plume poachers promptly murdered him. As Guy Bradley was a beloved fiddle player in Key West, the islanders burned down the poachers’ house and ran them off.

    Matthiessen suggests that Jean Chevalier likewise met an untimely end. Seen in fine health one day, Watson reported him dead and buried the next, immediately after Chevalier purportedly signed over his property rights to Watson.

    Pouring over the map in the front of the book, my eyes light upon Chevelier Bay, situated midway along a string of inland bays. These remote bays constitute nearly half of the 99 mile Everglades Wilderness Waterway. These bays in the western Everglades / Big Cypress ecosystem are shallow with tannic water and mud bottoms.

    On Google Earth, though, the bottom of Chevelier Bay appears different from the others, uniquely dotted with oyster patches. I want to see it up close, and of course, to check out the fish and birds.

    Chevelier Bay is ~20 miles by water from the nearest road, so a day trip requires the skiff instead of the kayak. Getting stuck by a falling tide that far into the backcountry would not be smart, so I’ll want to time my arrival at the shallow bay a hour before the crest of the inland tide.

    Between my volunteer stints as a poll-watcher, I find a day promising fair weather and the right tides.

    Around 6:30 am on the appointed day, I learn that the price of launching a skiff at Chokoloskee had risen from $25 to $35. Geez. When next I see the owner, I’ll ask if he would entertain a “retired educator discount”.

    I pay up and launch at low tide, affording another sunrise over Chokoloskee Bay. A passing flock of Roseate Spoonbills overhead glows in the dawn light.

    When the tide is down, one cannot traverse the shallow backcountry water route, so I run around the outside of Rabbit Key on the edge of the Gulf.

    The chop and wind on the open water conspire to soak my pants clear through. A drier-running skiff would help, but waterproof overalls would be cheaper.

    A Peregrine Falcon does a lazy fly-over. So cool. Reaching for my boat binoculars, I remember (yet again) that a friend borrowed them for a week in August and still has not returned them. Leaving a birder without his boat binocs during the coastal raptor migration has to result in automatic suspension of borrowing privileges.

    With a little time before the tide allows me into Chevelier Bay, I fish the Huston Coves along the edge of the Gulf. (“Huston” is pronounced like “Houston”.) The coves are bubbling with small baitfish and mullet, but no predatory fish are in evidence, save for small seatrout. Have the predators filled up early and gone elsewhere to digest their meal?

    Tides on the outside of the 10k Islands lead those on the inside by two hours. The tide on the Gulf edge is already approaching high, allowing snook and redfish to enter the flooded mangrove forest. I hear the loud smacks of snook continuing to feed on small fish deep in the trees. More continuous splashing of a flooded spit draws me in for a closer look….

    I make out the bronze backs of redfish chasing prey in the shallow water among the mangrove roots. Having no way to cast a fly or lure that deep into mangroves, I fish the accessible water outside the trees and catch some Speckled Seatrout.

    Such pretty fish. I put them back.

    Heading up the Chatham River, I spot the Watson Place, a 40 acre patch of relative high ground, evidenced by the taller hardwood hammock. Royal Poinciana trees, native to Madagascar, indicate 20th Century habitation. On this spot, Edgar J. Watson built a fine house, raised families by successive wives, grew Florida’s first sugarcane, and pretended to look the other way while his foreman murdered the farm hands after the harvest, saving Watson the expense of paying them.

    Remains of the Watson homestead include this intact brick structure, maybe a cistern or possibly the boiler for reducing sugarcane juice to the syrup from which Watson earned a living. Imagine hauling those bricks and mortar up from Key West or down from Ft. Myers. Plus a lot of heavy bullets.

    Chevelier Bay is deeply tannic, resembling nothing so much as Turkish coffee. I see no baitfish, just a Great Blue Heron and a couple of contented Ospreys. Little promise for fishing here today. After getting no bites while blind-casting at promising points and constrictions, I keep exploring southward.

    On the west side of the bay I pass Opossum Key, where Jean Chevalier built his house.

    I venture through the next two bays. Seeing no tarpon in Tarpon Bay, I turn back to check out the oyster beds visible in the aerial imagery of Chevelier Bay.

    Putt-putting along, I pause to lift my seat and check the fuel gauge on my tank. Just under half full, too little for continued exploration. With more time and fuel, I would have continued south another eleven miles to the aptly named Lost Man’s Lakes, Lost Man’s River, Lost Man’s Beach, and Lost Man’s Key. These famous fishing spots are also significant in the Watson story.

    * * *

    A young couple, Wally and Bet Tucker left E. J. Watson’s employ suddenly after discovering the bodies of two cane cutters, disinterred by Watson’s hogs in the back of the cane field. The Tuckers relocated to Lost Man’s Key, with blessings of the owner, clearing brush and planting their own farm near Lost Man’s Beach. When Watson got title to Lost Man’s Key, he sent the Tuckers a note instructing them to clear out immediately. With both their harvest and baby due in the next month, they refused to vacate on short notice. Neighbors heard gunshots and found the couple shot dead, the unique keel mark of Watson’s boat visible nearby.

    These deaths didn’t sit well with the locals. Neither did the deaths of numerous subsequent Watson employees. E. J. Watson disappeared for a while, but when the people of Chokoloskee heard the distinctive chugging of his motorboat approaching Smallwood’s Store, men gathered on the shoreline with their rifles loaded.

    Ed Watson mistook this display for a bluff and upped the ante as he’d always done, raising his double-barreled shotgun towards the men.

    They hurriedly buried Watson in the sandy beach at Rabbit Key. The coroner later removed 33 bullets from his corpse.

    * * *

    It’s time for me to head back to Chokoloskee myself, on plane at full throttle to maximize fuel efficiency.

    The return route through the backcountry traverses a string of six shallow bays, the winding and narrow Crooked Creek, Lopez River, and at last the oyster shoals of Chokoloskee Bay in sight of Smallwood’s Store. There I spot-lock the trolling motor to fish and eat a late lunch.

    As I cast and retrieve paddletail lures over the oyster beds, a Checkered Puffer swims up and bites off their tails. Gee, thanks.

    Throughout the day I have encountered more ghosts than living people, just three boats in the distance and one skiff anchored at a bay mouth. I never found fish worth breaking out the fly rod, but that can happen. Its limitless bounties long gone, the Ten Thousand Islands remains a moody and unforgiving place that requires commitment and hard work for anything it shares.

  • Birding the Camargue

    The Camargue is the floodplain delta of the Rhône, situated between the city of Arles, where we are staying, and the Mediterranean Sea. The terrain is flat and marshy, checkered with rice fields, brackish pools, small canals, salt ponds, and tidal estuaries. On the advice of my cousin Judy, we rented a car to visit the Camargue.

    DAY 1

    Our first afternoon with wheels we headed down the west side of the Camargue to the Parc Ornithologique.

    Enroute, we picked up a sweet young couple who were hitch-hiking, and drove them a bit beyond our turn-off to a better spot where they could find their next ride.

    The Parc Ornithologique is much like Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island, Virginia, but better in important ways. Impoundments are well-maintained and are teaming with water birds. The maze of trails is for walking only. Observation benches and blinds are situated close to the birds.

    Greater Flamingos are everywhere.

    The multilingual signage is informative, even for an old pro like me. For instance, banding results show the flamingoes roam the Mediterranean, but particular individuals return to this park year after year.

    I learned that Cetti’s Warbler is one of the few polygynous passerines. My bird book told me that Cetti’s Warbler sings from concealed spots, moving quickly from spot-to-spot. My Merlin phone app played me the song. Ah ha!

    I had been hearing the beautiful liquid song of Cetti’s Warblers everywhere and getting only the odd peak at its sources (nondescript brown-backed jobs with a faint white eye-line) hiding in the dense vegetation. Cetti’s Warbler, and the handsome European Dipper I encountered while trout fishing, were my new birds for the trip.

    In contrast to the solid orange-pink of the American Flamingos, the Greater Flamingos are pinkish white, with their crimson wing coverts and axillaries visible mainly in flight.

    Photo by Gray Read

    Hearing whinnies from across the thick reed beds, we finally saw the sources. As on Assateague Island, wild horses roam the marshy terrain of Camargue, accompanied by faithful Cattle Egrets, which sometimes rode on their backs.

    Nutria, introduced from South America, don’t seem to be doing so much damage to embankments as they did in the southeastern US.

    Park staff told us we could remain after the park closed for the evening, letting ourselves out via the revolving gate. It’s been very dry of late – we saw just one mosquito and one no-see-um – so we stayed until dusk, watching the day birds put themselves away for the night.

    As night herons emerged against a pink and purpling sky, we enjoyed a picnic supper of Brillat-Savarin cheese and guacamole on gluten-free toast accompanied by fresh plums and figs. Pas mal.

    DAY 2

    Having parked the car overnight near our apartment in Arles for half a Euro, we spent the next morning exploring the east side of the Camargue.

    We drove into the Reserve Nationale Camargue where sea salt has been evaporated and harvested from salt ponds at least since Roman times. Now it’s done with big machines instead of slaves.

    Sel de Camargue is found in all the local salt shakers. It’s good on fried potatoes and would go well with rice, if you could find rice.

    White dots in front of the salt mesa are flamingoes.

    We finally made it to the Mediterranean, where gleeful children splashed in the warm water and sweaty young Frenchmen enjoyed the manly art of hitting each other in the face.

    And Gray did what Gray does.

    For the birders among you, my bird list follows …

    18 Sep 2026, Parc Ornithologique &
    19 Sep 2026, Reserve Nationale Camargue

    • Great Crested Grebe
    • Great Cormorant 
    • Greater Flamingo
    • Great Grey Heron
    • Great Egret
    • Little Egret
    • Cattle Egret
    • Night Heron
    • Glossy Ibis
    • Mute Swan
    • Black Swan (1)
    • Common Shelduck
    • Mallard
    • Teal
    • Shoveler
    • European Coot
    • Moorhen
    • Western Swamphen
    • Yellow-footed Gull
    • European Herring Gull
    • Black-headed Gull
    • Caspian Tern
    • Sandwich Tern
    • Common Tern
    • Dunlin
    • Green Sandpiper
    • Greenshank
    • Redshank
    • Black-tailed Godwit
    • Avocet
    • Black-winged Stilt
    • Ringed Plover
    • European Kestrel
    • Sparrowhawk 
    • Marsh Harrier
    • Osprey 
    • Common Buzzard 
    • Kingfisher
    • Collared Dove
    • Rock Dove 
    • Barn Swallow
    • Sand Martin
    • Cetti’s Warbler
    • House Sparrow
    • Blue Tit

  • Lagrasse

    We have spent an enchanted week-plus in the medieval town of Lagrasse, in the south of France. 

    After the Catholic Church successfully eradicated the heretical Cathars in the 14th Century, they established an abbey to preserve the Church’s grip on the populace. The town of Lagrasse grew up beside the abbey.

    The abbey today is inhabited by Jesuits who grow olives and wine grapes. In their long brown robes they play soccer with the local kids.

    The abbey’s bell rings on the half hour, followed exactly two minutes later by the bell of the local Catholic church.

    We stayed in the apartment of our old (but younger than us) friends Michael and Nan. A couple of days after we arrived, they drove the 12 hours from their residence in Delft, Netherlands, to join us for the week.

    The outer wall of their apartment is stone, a full meter thick, forming part of the outer wall of the town, properly defensible from whoever might attempt to take by force the local resources: wine, olive oil, and violet ice cream.

    Just a random bit of the cobblestone street.

    Every inch of the town begs for a watercolor painter. If only we knew one. 

    The only times Gray was without her sketchbook in hand were sleeping, swimming, and meals.

    Ok, scratch “and meals”.

    Lagrasse sits on the d’Orbieu River, a clear-running creek this time of year, which can rise 30 feet in flood, filling basements and first floors in the town.  In late summer, it’s more of a creek.

    The only grocer in town keeps random shop hours and stocks a random selection of wares to match.

    On Saturday morning, though, a market is held in the open square outside the apartment.

    On first glance, it doesn’t look like much, but step inside and look again…

    We stocked up on peaches, plums, vegetables, beef, poultry, sausage, salami, paté, cheeses, wine, and gluten-free bread. It’s France.

    For dessert we could wander down the lane along the river to an ice cream shop. Gray had mint chip in a cup. I had violet ice cream in a cone. It’s a thing.

    Michael and Nan, basking in the glow of ice cream.

    The river is home to herons, ducks, wagtails, astoundingly beautiful kingfishers, and Great Gray Herons that look like our Great Blue Heron but say “snirk!” instead of “snork!”.  And fish. 

    The d’Orbeau looks like a trout stream and is stocked with trout in the spring, but this time of year the visible fish are Chevesne aka Chevaine (Squalius cephalus) up to 18” in length and Mediterranean Barbel (Barbus meridionalis) up to 24”.

    I had planned a fishing-free vacation for my right hand to recover after a summer of excessive fly casting. But Michael discovered that I fly fished, disappeared into their store room, and emerged with four fly rods, reels to match, and assorted fly tackle, left over from his days fishing trout in the Colorado Rockies. 

    The water was cool, but warm enough for me to wade in my sandals.  I found the little Chevesne would pick at dry flies all day and the bigger ones would take a dry fly in the late afternoon.

    Chevesne caught on dry fly

    Barbels, however, preferred a slice of salami.

    Mediterranean Barbel, caught on salami.

    The Barbel looks like a bonefish and fights even harder than a wet rag. They try. I took a special liking to Barbels when I read they are considered a biological indicator of high water quality. Both species are eaten by the French, though the Barbel has poisonous roe. I let mine go back in the “river” to enjoy life and make more.

    Michael and Nan are former bike racers, and took regular bike rides on their featherweight carbon fiber bicycles.

    Nan, petite and svelte, remains a cycling beast, riding a fast 35 km through the foothills of the nearby Pyrenees one morning.

    Their apartment was briefly visible to television viewers of the Tour de France. Michael watched the Tour de Spain at night on his computer. 

    Afternoons included a swim in the river.

    At 1:30 am I woke to soft rustling and crunching noises. Had a rat had gotten in to nibble my chocolate bar?  I slipped out of bed to investigate and found the sounds were coming from outside. I stood in the cool breeze of the open window and strained to see and hear in the moonless night.

    From the rustling noises and footsteps I could localize two large beings roaming around in the dark directly below. The one on the left was concealed by the stirring bushes. My view of the one on the right was blocked by a balcony one floor below. That one was making loud hollow crunches, like bones being crushed in the teeth of a bear or large dog. CRACK! A Scops Owl tooted intermittently in the distance. CRUNCH! 

    My best guess was that I was listening to a pair wild boars that had descended from the forested hills above the abbey and waded across the river, but what was the crunching? In the morning, the ground by the patio was covered with large, cloven footprints, in the shade of a pair of bearing walnut trees.

    The next evening we wandered up the street for dessert but found the ice cream shop had closed. The owner, who puts trout in the river every spring, was gone for a week of boar hunting. Filling the larder and making Lagrasse safer for walnuts.

    Some pics from Gray’s sketchbook:

    We are off to the town of Arles on the Rhône, close to the Mediterranean.

  • Yucatan 3: First Day- “More longer”

    Yucatan 3: First Day- “More longer”

    Breakfast at Playa Blanca Lodge is whatever you want. I had coffee, OJ, fresh tropical fruits, an omelette, and two strips of bacon. We packed our lunches from an equally splendid spread of ceviche, fried fish, leftover roast beef or BBQ ribs, fruits, sandwich fixings, French cheeses, you name it. You want bottles of water, limeade, beer? How many?

    At 07:10, fly fishing guests assembled at the truck for the 20 minute ride south to the dock. Skiffs departed the dock each day at 07:30 and returned by 16:00.

    The flats of Espiritu Santo Bay (Bahia del Espiritu Santo) are accessed by a fleet of small Dolphin skiffs. The ride south is bouncy in the waves driven by the prevailing SE trade winds, but the small craft are dry and easy for guides to pole. The guides are all local fellows from the Yucatan. My guide the first four days was a short, stocky fellow named Chepo, pronounced “Chay-Poe”. The first day on the water, I had Chepo and his boat to myself.

    Chepo looked in my box of permit flies and picked out a crab fly, my favorite by chance, that I’d crafted from a coconut fibre scrubbing pad and some “ultra chenille”.

    Up on the poling platform, Chepo deployed his magic flats vision, spotting fish invisible to me under the shimmering waves.

    In addition to Spanish, Chepo speaks a dialect of fly fishing English, enhanced with his own units of measure:

    “Eleven o’clock, forty feet”  means
    “Cast 45° left of center, sixty feet”.

    “White, white…”  means  
    “Wait, wait…”

    “Cast again! More longer!”  means
    “Throw the fly in the same direction, but seventy feet.”

    Once I learned to follow Chepo’s directions (“white” took the longest), I began to catch fish.

    A baby Bonefish, my smallest ever on fly, somehow managed to stuff most of that crab fly in its mouth.  

    Some juvenile Mutton Snappers likewise gulped down the crab fly, my first ones on a fly rod.

    An uncounted mess of small Blue Runners and Mangrove Snappers did their best to rip the fly to pieces, yanking loose bits of coconut fiber, and chewing the fuzz off the leading claw so it flopped pitifully.

    Finally a permit appeared, using my new rod, I cast what little remained of the fly: a small disk of coconut fiber, two eyes, and a trailing claw.

    “White, white, white…strip…strip…strip…STRIP-STRIP-STRIP!”

    The Permit connected with my bedraggled fly. I cleared the line and the reel drag sang the happy buzzing song that flats fishers so love to hear as the fly line sliced water in two.

    My first Permit on fly, not huge, but just dandy, on my first day fishing the flats of Bahia del Espiritu Santo, on the tattered remnants of a file that I tied, cast with a rod that I built. What’s better than that?

    Thank you Andy, Juan, and Chepo.

    Two ways to eat a scorpion

    Playa Blanca Lodge has one sacred tradition: when an angler catches his or her first Permit, he or she must eat a scorpion.

    Accordingly, after dinner that night, young Calvin and I were each served a scorpion, pickled in mescal. 

    Florida Bark Scorpion, Centruroides gracilis

    I recognized my dessert topping as a Florida Bark Scorpion, common in the Florida Keys. For years I kept one in a jar of alcohol on my desk at work. They’re big and scary when they skitter across the floor, and their sting hurts like a wasp if you are unfortunate enough to contact one, but their venom is not lethal. The terminal segment of the tail that holds the venom had already been removed.

    I took my scorpion apart leg-by-leg, squeezing the meat out of each segment with my teeth like one does with the legs of a fried tarantula, a tasty Cambodian delicacy.

    Glancing back and forth between his own intact scorpion and me, actively nibbling my prize, Calvin looked worried. Finally, he picked up the 8-legged horror and tossed it down the hatch in one gulp, aided by the double shot of tequila.

    The chitin exoskeleton of arthropods is indigestible, so you can guess what happens, or rather, what doesn’t happen, if one swallows said arthropod without chewing. Not wanting my scorpion to reappear as a scorpion, ever, I channeled my inner squirrel monkey and thoughtfully munched it down.

    After its soak in mescal, the scorpion tasted more like mescal than the assorted terrestrial arthropods I’ve eaten on prior tropical adventures. I gave it a rating of meh-minus, but the fruit was good. I’ll happily take a deep-fried tarantula over a mescal-soaked scorpion any day.

  • Yucatan 2: Playa Blanca Lodge

    Yucatan 2: Playa Blanca Lodge

    Flying over the sea from Miami to Cancún, I looked down on blobs and bands of sargassum “seaweed” floating towards the shore.

    This massive sargassum outbreak is a new phenomenon, postulated to result from fertilizer run-off in the Amazon areas that have been converted to agriculture.

    The resort cities across the Caribbean, including Miami, Cancún, and Tulum have been hit hard by sargassum washing up on the beaches, rotting and stinking. In Mexico, resorts are being protected by floating barriers designed to keep sargassum away. They do their best to intercept it at sea and haul it away before it can wash ashore. In the US sargassum has rights.

    I had one night in Cancún before taking a puddle-jumper south to Punta Pajaros in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere. The outfitter that organized the trip, Yellow Dog Fly Fishing, recommended the Marriott Courtyard Hotel as clean, inexpensive, and close to the airport. What the outfitter didn’t mention is that the coconut-ginger ice cream served in the hotel restaurant is over-the-moon good, the garden is full of birds, and a resident coatimundi snuffles around the garden by the pool. It’s a truly dandy place to stay overnight.

    From Cancún, we took a chartered single engine plane southward 45 minutes to an airstrip at Punta Pajaros. 

    From the airstrip, we were ferried across a lagoon in a panga, like an oversized dorry, and rode in the back of a truck 40 minutes down a dirt track to Playa Blanca Lodge. That’s four means of transport to get to the lodge.

    The instant we arrived at the lodge, a margarita appeared in my hand.

    The lodge recently upgraded to solar+battery power so the mini-split AC units kept humidity low in our cottages around the clock.

    More than nice enough for me. Comfortable beds too.

    Water from the well is noticeably salty, but we had fresh drinking water available in our rooms, and hot, brackish water for showering.

    You put your rods in the rack and they get spirited to the boats before you get there, and washed down with brackish water when you return to the lodge. I removed my reels at night and cleaned the lines and reels with a cup of fresh water.

    The normally white sand beach sported a thick band of sargassum, with more rolling in from the surf. The water remained clear along most shorelines, but on the shallower sections, sargassum rotted in the water, consuming dissolved oxygen, and tainting the water with stinky and toxic sulfur dioxide.

    Tarpon can breath air and so hunted baitfish disabled by the anoxic water. Frigatebirds did likewise.

    Gray Foxes are common on the grounds and surrounding woodland. In addition to the usual foxy fare of lizards, bugs, and baby birds, they munch on the assorted terrestrial crabs that wander the sandy grounds. 

    Our first night at the lodge, a fox stole one of two flip-flops off a cottage porch. The flip-flops belonged to Nate, a small animal vet from Idaho, who, in addition to flip-flops, had brought along his 20 year old son Calvin. 

    The next six days, quite a lot of fishing happened, some of which I’ll describe in subsequent posts. But for now, we’ll stick to the Lodge and its surrounds.

    This hermit crab is so well armored no fox is going to make a dent, and might get his nose pinched if it tried. The ubiquitous Great-tailed Grackle marches across the upper left corner of the photo.

    Ruins of a Mayan temple are a short walk down a mosquitoey trail through the woods.

    A fox trotted down the trail ahead of me before darting into the thick woods to check on his collection of kiped footwear. A member of the staff was lucky enough to spot a jaguar on the road one night. Seeing a jaguar would have upstaged catching a Permit.

    Our final evening we had a hermit crab race. The guests bet $20 each on which numbered crab of 30 would make it out of the sand ring first. My crab, #20, lost in the first elimination round. The ultimate winnings were contributed to the deserving staff who took such good care of us.

    Nate’s missing flip-flop was never found.

  • Yucatan 1: The Butterfly Effect

    Yucatan 1: The Butterfly Effect

    On the morning of 3 October 2025, I spotted a woman alone in the park across the street from our house. A pair of binoculars hung from her neck and she cradled a camera with a long lens. I always say ‘hi’ to birders in the park. Andrea Diamond, bubbling with excitement, told me she’d just spotted a Golden-winged Warbler, the first rare bird she had discovered on her own.  

    I came to know this elegant songbird during my childhood summers at a wildlife camp in West Virginia, but I had never seen one in Florida. Andrea relocated it quickly and I renewed my acquaintance with an old friend.

    Golden-winged Warbler in All American Park, South Miami. Photo by local birder Himanshu Gupta.

    For the next three days, South Florida’s birders flocked to the park and I became the Golden-winged Warbler Ambassador. Juan Valdez, one of the many birders who came to look for the warbler, also turned out to know the native plants. I learned that he works as an art museum curator and…wait… he fly fishes Biscayne Bay. Clearly my kind of guy.

    Since then I have entertained Juan through The Eye of the Cormorant and he has delighted me with photos and texts when his fly fishing skills produce a particularly splendid result.

    Juan with a bonefish caught on fly in Biscayne Bay.

    Fast forward to late June of this year. Juan phones me one evening to say that his friend Andy had booked a week at a fancy fly fishing lodge in the Yucatan, but cannot go. Andy offered the trip to Juan, but Juan can’t go either. In the unlikely event that I am free the second week of August the trip is mine.

    Playa Blanca Lodge is the sort  of place I read about online in the outfitter catalogs. I drool longingly over the descriptions, check the cost, then exhale and close the webpage. With this gifted package I just had to get myself from Miami to Cancún, cover one night in a hotel, and tip the lodge staff and fishing guides.

    I am definitely free the second week in August.

    Wow.

    Thanks Andy! Thanks Juan!

    Playa Blanca Lodge is situated in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Preserve on the Atlantic coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, located here on Google Maps.

    My family visited Sian Ka’an twelve years ago while on vacation in Tulum. The Biosphere Preserve is a cross between the Everglades and the Lower Florida Keys before people made such a mess of things here in Florida. The Mayans, likewise, tried their best to screw up the hydrology of Sian Ka’an, but equipped only with stone tools and manual labor for chipping canals out of the limestone bedrock, and no artificial fertilizer to aid their agriculture, the harms they wrought were far less extensive than here in Florida.

    The lower reaches of Sian Ka’an Biosphere include Espiritu Santo Bay, home to a healthy population of Permit(Trachinotus falcatus), a game fish in the jack family. Permit are wary, strong, and fast. The Permit is infamous among fly fishers for its capricious behavior, often rejecting a perfectly delivered fly and, on rare occasion, grabbing a fly from a botched cast. Permit fight hard, and have a large repertoire of escape tactics: scraping off a fly on a coral, crushing or straightening a fly’s hook, or grinding through the nylon leader on the floor of the bay.

    A local attorney friend has been trying to catch a Permit for years with no success.

    The most accomplished fisherman in my local fishing club writes: 
    “I have presented over 1000 flies to Permit… caught one (winning a tournament in 1988) and been skunked ever since!!! There is no way I haven’t found to lose a hooked Permit!” 

    Juan recently caught a nice Permit in Biscayne Bay. He is amazing.

    With only four years of fly fishing under my belt, I consider Permit to be out of my league. I’ve seen Permit in Biscayne Bay and the Keys, but I’ve never caught one on fly or even set my mind to trying. Last spring I followed a massive Permit in my kayak for half an hour, but despite my advancing as slowly as possible, the Permit would never let me approach closer than 125 feet.

    My benefactor, Andy, who gave me his trip reservation, sent me a brief note: 

    “Catch a permit for me.” 

    Uh oh.

    I ordered materials to tie Permit flies, producing an assortment of weighted crabby and shrimpy things in proven patterns recommended by the trip outfitter.

    My ties of the Raghead Crab fly.

    The weighted crab flies that Permit favor are hard to cast, so I would need serious practice.

    In the vain hope of not trashing my right hand by excessively casting my fast-action 9wt fly rod, I sought a rod of similar weight but with a softer action. The company I picked had 8/9wt rod blanks available, but none assembled in the size I wanted. I had never built out a rod blank before, but I figured why would Al Gore invent the internet if not for instructing a novice such as myself?

    Here’s the newly built rod, getting its epoxy coating on a rotating machine that prevents drips.

    I left for the airport a few hours after the epoxy dried.

  • Miami night terrors

    When the sun sets in Miami, our nocturnal biota makes its unseen entrance. The screaming parrots retire, replaced by soft-trilling screech owls. Limpkins stalk the canal banks, emitting eerie calls into the darkness. Night herons, pondering the nature of dark matter, exclaim “Quark!”.

    Like the birds, Miami’s invertebrate community holds its own changing of the guard: day-hunting spiders take down their webs and nocturnal spiders weave theirs. 

    We have a grotto in the backyard where we can amble down steps cut into the limestone rock (duck the spider webs) and visit the surface of the Biscayne Aquifer sitting two meters below the level of the yard.

    Starting from a grassy backyard, we cut the grotto with big yellow machines. I labored with a pickaxe to chop a stepped path into the rock wall. Having a safe way down, I planted Southern Maidenhair Ferns, pepperomia, and two tree seedlings: a cypress and a royal palm. With ready access to water, nature did the rest.

    Sheltered by the geometry of its sheer walls, the grotto is a silent place. As night falls over the grotto, sometimes, just sometimes, a Miami Cave Crayfish wanders into the grotto from the top edge of the aquifer.

    Miami Cave Crayfish (Procamberus milleri) in the grotto.

    A few meters below the ground, the subterranean Miami Cave Crayfish (Procamberus milleri) resides in large pores within the oolitic limestone through which flows the Biscayne Aquifer. Biologists from US Fish and Wildlife Service only know this hard-to-find species from our backyard. It’s a genuine treat to see one.

    The Miami Cave Crayfish was on schedule to be federally listed as “threatened”, but then, as part of Project 2025, the Trump Administration declared war on the Endangered Species Act and the process stopped. This story, in which I am deeply entangled, will be continued in a different post.

    After dinner last night I was wading in the grotto in search of cave crayfish (no luck), when a movement on the rock wall caught my eye. Just above the water line, something gray, resembling a very large spider caught my eye. It had six legs, two spiked claws tucked in front, and long antennae that flicked about in all directions. It was 3” across, 7” including the antennae. Here’s the photo, taken in the light of my flashlight.

    Recognize this thing? It’s a tailless whip-scorpion – my first one ever.

    The Spotted Tailless Whip Scorpion (Phrynus marginemaculatus) is an arachnid in the order Amblypygi, native to South Florida, the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola. The antennae are actually modified legs and the claws are modified pedipalps. The spiked claws on this dude were sufficient inducement to keep my hands to myself.

    My daughter, Vannak, received the photo by text and replied “nightmare fuel thank u”. Ever the thoughtful dad, I assured her that, although they’re large (“I was afraid of that”), they only come out at night.

  • Summer yard critters

    Summer yard critters

    I seem to have sprained my hand, so no fishing report this week. I am taking this setback as a chance to see more of summer’s offerings in our wooded yard in South Miami.

    In between icing my hand and tying flies for an impending fly fishing trip to the Sian Ka’an Biosphere in the Yucatan, I have snapped opportune pics of some critters in the yard. An iPhone in the pocket favors providence.

    Louisiana Waterthrush (Parkesia moticilla)

    The first fall migrant warbler in our yard is always a Louisiana Waterthrush, on their way south from breeding grounds along the Appalachians’ streams. The first waterthrush of this fall’s migration appeared during breakfast today, 30 July, alerting me with its characteristically loud and bright “chip” call. It landed on a small table by the grill, then flitted down to the water’s edge to hunt for bugs, too distant for a photo. I got this grainy shot (shade + high digital magnification) later in the morning through the glass door next to my desk. Waterthrushes constantly bob their back-ends up and down, which appears here as blur.

    Cuban Tree Frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis).

    A Cuban Tree Frog was spoinking around on the glass in our front door one evening, allowing this photo, taken from inside the house. These big tree frogs ate all the native tree frogs in the suburbs, so they’re all we’ve got.

    A baby Florida Racer aka Southern Black Racer (Coluber constrictor priapus).

    I found this sweetie on the front porch hunting bugs and baby lizards. Wikipedia accurately describes its behavior:
    “Members of this species generally do not tolerate handling – even after months in captivity – and typically strike and flail wildly every time they are handled, often defecating a foul-smelling musk, a common defense against predators in snakes.”
    She chewed on my finger and made a stink, but since neither defense had any deterrent effect, she settled down enough to let me snap a photo, left-handed.

    Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis x porcatus)

    Green Anoles change color between green and brown. The Green Anoles in Miami are all hybrids between the Carolina Anole and its ancestor, the Cuban Green Anole. It coexists with the other invasive exotic anoles by holding a unique niche in the trees, often high up.

    Atala Butterfly (Eumaeus atala).

    Thought to be extinct, Atalas were saved by local naturalist Roger Hammer, who stumbled onto an unexpected pocket of survivors. Roger surreptitiously introduced their larvae into the cycad collection at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, to the consternation of Fairchild’s Curator of Cycads. Atalas recovered and now lay eggs on the native cycad species, the Coontie, growing in our front yard. The larvae chew our lush Coonties to a tangle of brown stems while producing a cloud of small, colorful butterflies. The Coontie stores reserves in a big, starchy root and grows back.

    Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio).

    Mr. Screech Owl revealed his location by singing in the late afternoon when I ventured behind a tree to, um, water the plants. The lighting was all wrong, but it kind of worked anyway – such is the chance encounter.

    Crab Fly

    I’ve been tying a variety of crabby-looking flies in the hopes of fooling a Permit, a big tropical fish that eats crabs but which is notoriously wary, persnickety, and difficult to catch on fly. This fly is a mix of patterns that I adapted from various tyers. The body is cut from a coconut fiber kitchen scrub pad, the legs & claws I made from a fuzzy cord called “ultra chenille”, and the eyes I made from nylon monofilament and sparkly nail polish.

  • If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em

    The Blue Catfish (Ictalurus furcatus), is native to the Mississippi Valley, Gulf Coast, and east coast rivers of Central America:

    In 1974, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources introduced Blue Catfish to rivers on the western side of Chesapeake Bay. The DWR biologists assumed these catfish would remain confined to the freshwater systems. Their distribution along most of the Gulf coast should have been a hint that Blue Catfish tolerate salt water – duh. 

    Blue Catfish took no time moving into the saltwater and spreading throughout the Chesapeake. In the Bay they grow to over 50 pounds and devour every blue crab, clam, and menhaden in their path. The only good news is that Blue Catfish are delicious. 

    With fuel prices up, Gray and I took the EV north to visit family and friends, 4577 miles in all.

    I squeezed in a bit of fishing, of course. Visiting Gray’s family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland gives me a chance to fish with Jon Shaw, the husband of Gray’s second cousin. We fished off the family farm dock that extends into the Chester River, a brackish tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. 

    Jon and I bait-fished for a family dinner, finding 6-12 pound catfish off the end of the dock. Our first afternoon together Jon caught four catfish and I caught zero. Hmm. 

    To catch catfish as well Jon, I realized I’d have to ignore what he says (tie on a heavy leader and a 7/0 or 9/0 circle hook), and do what he does (tie on a light leader and a 3/0 or 5/0 circle hook). The discrepancy between his instructions and his practice should have come as no surprise to me insofar as all fishermen are liars, myself excepted. The second day I rigged my rod like his and did a lot better.

    Catfish overflowed Jon’s dinky cooler, so we filleted some on the spot to make them fit.

    With enough catfish to feed Gray’ cousins and plenty to freeze, I switched to fly fishing. Sitting on the dock near shore, I tied on a favorite snook fly, the gray over white Clouser Deep Minnow. The water swirled under my feet, so I flipped the fly beyond the swirl- nothing – try again – boom. A perfect dinner-sized Striped Bass, known locally as rockfish. 

    The river was closed for rockfish for six more days of spawning season, so my catch went back in the river to make more of them. 

    I caught a few little White Perch on fly. They also went back in the river – too small.

    Another fish took the fly and fought above its weight, attempting the old run-under-the-dock-and-break-your-fly-rod-or-cut-your-line maneuver. When it flashed bronze instead of silver, I realized it was not another rockfish, but rather a Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus). I’d never taken one on fly. It’s a spirited gamefish.

    Back at the barn, Jon and I filleted Blue Catfish. The females were full of eggs and the stomach of one spilled a load of Atlantic Ribbed Mussels (Geukensia demissa). The Blue Catfish is mostly head and stomach, yielding one pound of meat for each four pounds of catch. Jon put the ample carcasses out for his resident Bald Eagles and we all had a fine dinner.

  • Radio Shrimp

    It’s the spring of 1995 and I’m onboard the R/V Bellows, anchored off the Dry Tortugas. Beside me is my host and senior colleague, Professor L. Scott Quackenbush. Quack is an expert on the endocrinology of marine invertebrates as well as a crack aquaculturist.

    Dr. L. Scott Quackenbush

    Our elbows propped on the rail, as we admire the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. Quack is downwind of me enjoying a smoke, a vice that will take him out three years from now.

    “Did I ever tell you about the time we tried shrimp-farming at Turkey Point?”

    I am all ears. Turkey Point is the site of two nuclear power generators on the shore of Biscayne Bay operated by Florida Power and Light (FPL). When first opened in the early 1970s, the reactors dumped thermally hot water into the bay, scalding everything and causing a massive sea grass kill. 

    Look ma, no cooling towers!

    Instead of building cooling towers like those handling hot water in every other nuclear power plant on Planet Earth, FPL cheaped-out and constructed an expansive trapezoidal array of leaky cooling canals. The cooling canals cover 10 square miles of the Southeast Coastal Everglades.

    The canals released giant plumes of hyper-saline water into the porous limestone rock beneath them, which expanded outward underground in all directions, including towards the well field that supplies fresh water to the Florida Keys. Most of the local biologists who are not on FPL’s payroll consider these canals an environmental disaster, which I’ll explain more about some other time. This story is about shrimp.

    FPL contracted Dr. Quackenbush to determine if they could raise shrimp in the warm water of Turkey Point’s cooling canals. 

    Quack told me that they blocked off the ends of a couple of canal branches and he stocked them with shrimp.

    The shrimp grew and thrived. But, when he harvested the shrimp, they were radioactive. 

    Nuclear reactors produce radioiodines, though these radioisotopes are supposed to be contained in the reactor vessels. Shrimp concentrate iodine.

    “We filled in those canals and buried the whole project, and if you ever repeat this story to anyone, I will deny it.”

    (FPL contracts are famous for their airtight non-disclosure agreements.)

    * * *

    Quack passed in 2008, so I figure it’s OK to retell his story today. Make of it what you will – I do have another witness to the telling.