Cape Coral, FL. Eye level. As their February breeding season approaches, Florida burrowing owls spend more time outside their burrows during daylight hours. This one was checking out the scene in the late afternoon sun of a January day. I'm especially fond of this photo because the owl doesn't seem too alarmed by my presence...many photographs you see of these little owls capture them in a wide-eyed state of alarm in a nervous upright posture if the photographer appears too close or too tall. Also, the human who attends to this burrow does a very nice job of keeping the surrounding vegetation at the 5-inch height recommended the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Fort Myers, FL. This is a female Anhinga, drying her wings after a hunt. I happen to think that of all the birds, the female Anhinga may be the most beautiful. I love when they pose like this out of the water, and I've never seen the light in their wings this way before. It's a colorful photo with nice light, but I don't view this as a fully "natural" scene. It also has me questioning what we often consider "beautiful" and how we're conditioned to accept the notion of beauty in photography without fully understanding. A sunset photo easily generates a lot of likes without a lot of thinking. You see, the bird is surrounded by a plant known as Australian Pine or she-oak (Casaurina sp.). In some parts of the world where it has evolved to grow naturally, it is prized for its foliage and its ability to grow quickly. It is not really a pine, however, and it is one of the worst invasive species in Florida. It crowds out native vegetation, creating dense carpets of dropped leaves so thick that wildlife - birds, tortoises, alligators, and crocodiles - are unable to move about and nest there. The trees also break easily in high winds and make troublesome piles of debris after storms. Efforts to eradicate the plant here have met with mixed results, and it is just one of many invasive species that have irreperably altered the Florida environment over the past century. It doesn’t feel so beautiful. In addition, the scene is reflected by water in an abandoned limestone quarry that has been turned into a city park. It's a popular place where people enjoy being outdoors close to where they live. It is well understood, however, that limestone mining worldwide affects local groundwater and surface water quality. Water quality is among the most pressing of all environmental issues in south Florida, and limestone is a big industry here. So while I see a pretty scene of a bird at sunset here, I also see a scene of native wildlife doing its best to thrive in an environment that hasn't always been this way. There's beauty in adaptation, but I also feel something here that has been lost. Think about what you like, think about what you plant, and support the restoration of native plants as you can.

I had the fortune to drive across south Florida in March 2021. This is a Black-crowned Night-heron along the Loop Road in Big Cypress National Preserve. He's "in the zone" waiting stoically for a school of small fish to approach his perch above the water. The good news, according to my own eye, is that it's probably been close to 40 years since I've seen so many wading birds - herons, egrets, spoonbills, wood storks, and more - in the marshes and canals here. Biologists with the South Florida Water Management District and in other places confirm it. They expect bird populations to explode to historical numbers this spring. A lot of the credit goes to the restoration of the natural flow of freshwater across South Florida over the past couple of years. 2020 was also a good year for rainfall here. You may disagree with the social and health policies of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, but you have to give his administration credit for developing the bipartisan support to revive the Everglades restoration project that had been dead for so long. It represents the work of some who have been fighting for decades. There's still a lot of to do in terms of improving water distribution and water quality, especially in coastal areas south of Okeechobee, but it's heartening to see something moving in a visibly positive direction.

"Second Nature" is an ongoing project, bearing witness to a new order in the natural world due to human impacts. Feb 2018. A 4-foot-long green iguana, Wakodahatchee Wetlands, Delray Beach, FL. Three years later, in Feb 2021, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) voted unanimously to update regulations regarding green iguanas and other reptiles that are bred there. With overwhelming public support, FWC commissioners tightened restrictions on their captivity and set a date of June 2024 for commercial pet breeders to transition away from their use. Some of my earliest memories from the 60's involve Florida wildlife. At 4 years old, I learned tree frog species that sat on the window screens. I fell asleep to the thuds of an armadillo bumping against the wooden porch steps digging for grubs. First lessons in bird ID were out the car window passing roadside ditches lined with every variety of egret and heron. It was also in the 60's that highly destructive green iguanas were introduced into Florida as part of the pet trade. They are just one of countless exotic animals and plants that have taken hold in the subtropics of the state over the past century, driving native species toward extinction. Combined with habitat loss, pollution, and the elimination of natural water flows, the abundance of wildlife that was Florida no longer exists. In Feb 2012, while driving along the entrance road to Everglades National Park I saw heartbreaking signs pleading with visitors to report any mammal - raccoon, rabbit, opossum, bobcat - living or dead - to park personnel. Non-native Burmese pythons were eliminating the native land mammals there. Later that day, I pointed out a 3-foot python hidden in a culvert along a popular wildlife trail to a ranger who sighed and shrugged before going off to get help removing the snake. That same month, the journal of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a cover article about the snakes and their devastating impacts. It is easy to feel unsteady when witnessing such changes in the natural order. But one can also marvel in the power of life to persist and evolve in whatever form, pythons and iguanas included.

South Florida. A Butterfly Peacock defends its shallow water nest on the edge of a canal from one of the southeast's most voracious and persistent predators, a Florida Softshell Turtle. The non-native Butterfly Peacock, commonly called a "Peacock Bass" is actually a large cichlid from the Amazon, introduced into the state about 40 years ago by sport fishermen. It is one of the few invasive species that has assimilated itself into the natural food chain here. It is prized by fishermen for its aggressiveness and size, and by state biologists who believe it may actually help keep populations of other potentially harmful non-native species under control. Of course, as with many other introduced species, its' impact may never be fully understood.