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The Two Terrors|October 14. Two birds rule the underwater hunt, terrorizing fish and frog from cypress swamp to mangrove forest. The anhinga (aka snakebird, American darter, water turkey, Tupi, and devil bird) and the cormorant (aka crow-duck, lawyer, shag and Taunton turkey). Nature has not spared these birds its sovereignty over design, tuning form andContinue reading “The Two Terrors: Hunt of the Anhinga and Cormorant”

August 8 | Waccasassa River: Thousands of eastern lubber grasshoppers (Romalea microptera/R. gutatta) descend upon the Waccasassa. They move along the shoreline in the slow, deliberate cadence of a drunkard’s gait. Both hind- and fore-wings are underdeveloped, leaving the grasshopper flightless1 and seemingly helpless. Yet the lubber thrives in great swarms that emerge from theContinue reading “Lubber, not a Fighter”

April 18 | Hillsborough River: Swarms of the whirligig beetle (Gyrinidae spp.), in chaotic dance, gather in the sunlight on the still, black water of the Hillsborough River. Under canopies of ancient cypress, they roam its pools and eddies for prey, converging as a voracious pack on an upended dragonfly, a stray tent caterpillar—the remainsContinue reading “Whirligig”