Slice of Loving Nature

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         I just returned from two weeks on Captiva Island, in a house by the ocean with my family. Aside from glorying in the ocean, swimming and playing every day, saying goodnight to the sun, I do what I seem to do everywhere, watch the animal life. I couldn't take pictures of the live sand dollars I found, but we brought them out briefly in order to wonder at their small waving tentacles. I couldn't take a pic of the black snake with yellow under the head I saw wriggling through the sand, but I'll remember where I think it lives, in an awesome tree outside the house that must be home for a wealth of small creatures. My regret is that I don't have the time to observe for months. I think I would see changes that would surprise, just as I do in my own home. I'm hoping that the grandchildren will continue to notice, love and respect their own natural worlds as they grow up.

That special tree where the snake disappeared.

Here are the animals I managed to capture, among so many others we saw. 

Live shell found, observed, and returned to the sea.

We adored watching the little sanderlings
who scurried past with one eye on us.

We stopped at a coffee house and found a tiny crab.

This short-billed dowatcher arrived every
morning.

Evening walk by the house, lots of small
crabs out for their own strolls.

Never easy to catch a lizard still enough
for a picture, but finally found one!

Discovered on the front walk one morning.
We think it was a young heron.

Crane on the next door roof. 

Not alive, but loved anyway. Created by my
son-in-law, Dave, and grandkids, Carter and Imogene.

    "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson