SOUTH FLORIDA

It’s winter here. The natives and the Snowbirds as well, they know winter when they see it. The sun hangs lower and sets sooner and a day in the 80’s is a welcome respite from the steamy heat of summer. Locals love the business that Snowbirds bring to the economy but they hate the traffic. Six lane boulevards suffer endless gridlock with exotic, out of state SUV’s, bumper to bumper. I’m a Michigander with a well honed sensibility to springtime bluster, bucolic summers up the lake shore, blazing fall colors; then frost on the glass and lake effect snow. It’s a dance where the music changes every few months and you change along with it. I love it. Just down the road from Fort Myers, I feel like an alien, afraid I’ll be discovered and dragged down to the beach to be flogged by incensed frostophobes. I’m trying to adjust. It’s short sleeve protocol outside but when I come in the AC is working, as much to dehumidify as to cool, and I need to slip on long sleeves. It makes perfect sense I suppose but I resist in principle and remain keenly aware that I am out of sync with everyone else. 

In Alaska, bears are deep in hibernation and Michigan squirrels are holed up as well. January in Florida, the change is more subtle but the animals here know all about winter. Humidity is high but not much rain, canals and sloughs are running low. When egrets swoop in to catch lunch the vegetation that used to be at water’s edge is now high and dry, and the deep holes in the middle are just right for wading. With no place to hide, little fish are easy pickin’ and the big birds just feed without rationalizing. I stalked an egret along the canal today, hoping for a good photo with a fish in its beak but it was too fast and the best I could do was a shot of it flying away. I’ll fly away in another week or so. I’ll have good photos and stories to tell and it will be cold outside and warm inside, like it’s supposed to be.