12 Oakdale

We’re exhausted after 4 days of birding in South Florida with Orange Audubon Society. Up and out of the hotel by 6:30 for all-day walking and craning our necks up, holding binoculars. I definitely need to add upper body strength training to our fitness routines. Our guides, Mariah and Luis, spotted and heard birds like magicians conjuring doves from their hats and, most importantly, could describe where they were, so the rest of us could find them. Just outside Everglades National Park, we walked the canal, seeing egrets and herons on the water side, warblers and other wintering migrants on the field side. Two white tailed kites flew over to hunt in the park. In the Keys, at Dagney Johnson Biological State Park, I saw warblers (parula, prairie, black and white, pine, palm), oven birds, and catbirds. At Blue Hole on Big Pine Key, not so much, but the alligator hanging out with tarpon was a surprise. Luis spotted 2 black racers on the Golden Orb Trail on Long Key, where I’d risen my bike...

Peg, Betsy, and I went to Venice Beach for sister time and to hunt sharks teeth. Success on both fronts. Our base was the Venice Beach Villas, a non-beachfront old Florida-style motel on Venice Avenue, within walking distance of the beach, restaurants, and shops. Initially, I was disappointed not to be right on the beach, but I changed my mind. Owner Craig provided bikes (which we never got around to using), scoops and sieves to sort sand from treasure, beach chairs, and lots of towels. Perfect. The Gulf was calm and warm. We spent hours sitting in the water, just at the shore’s edge, looking for teeth. To find really big ones, we probably had to snorkel along the backwater riverbank, but mangroves do not appeal to us. Two young women said they’d found more than 200, but we weren’t as diligent. Oldsters stopped by and reminisced about finding teeth while just walking the beach. Since these teeth are from prehistoric sharks, I think there are just as many as there were 30 or 40 years ag...