It is a fine afternoon here in southwest Florida.  Anne is out playing recorder with other players she found in the neighborhood.  Mom and Dad are napping.  Outside are brilliant sunshine and a strong wind.  The temperature is 60 degrees F.  A “reinforcing” front passed through this morning as Anne and I traipsed about Sanibel Island.  At dawn the sky was clear though a shimmer of orange played out around the rising sun.  At eight a.m. the sky was in turmoil with bands of dark gray clouds reaching across the sky.  The wind became fresh from the north and dark waves formed on San Carlos Bay.  By nine-thirty the sky was clear again but strong pressure increased the wind.  Now the flow of air continues; the pond in the middle of Heritage Cove sparkles and the spray from the fountain sweeps to the shore.  A freeze is forecast for tonight, but, this close to the coast, we may be spared the worst of it.

The produce farms to the east are bracing for a kill, and citrus may be ruined as well.  That is too bad, but as Ms. Rawlings noted in her book, Cross Creek, the dirty little secret is that central and north Florida really do get cold at times.  I frankly am surprised to see so many tomatoes being grown in winter this far north of Miami.  Sadly, with regard to weather people have very short memories.  When I was a youth in Miami, the consensus was that hurricanes were a thing of the past.  They were, and now they are a thing of the present and future.  Freezes destroyed the central Florida citrus groves in the 70’s.  The orchards turned into housing developments.  In the 90’s winter vegetable farming moved back in as the weather moderated.  The industry may move back out again if we have a few more winters like this.  Frankly, this is not even a harsh winter for Florida, and it remains a winter haven as more temperate regions of the country truly experience a hard winter. 

Notice that I posted today’s notes from Lee County, not Fort Myers.  Florida is very different from Pennsylvania in that most of Florida lacks municipal government.  This residence is probably ten miles from the City of Fort Myers.  The only local government, with the exception of the condominium association, is the county. Fort Myers is strictly a regional designation for this location. 

Use of Lee County does not particularly thrill me either as I am not a great fan of the Robert E. Lee for whom it is named.  Growing up in Florida, I learned to respect its historic leaders, but I could never thrill to the Confederacy.  Those who defend it as representing the spirit of the people against Northern hegemony forget that in many parts of the South the majority of the people were at the time enslaved.  The saw of Sherman cutting across the Georgia put an end to that business, thank goodness, but “Southern thinking” was still strong when I arrived in Florida as a small boy.  I remember being shushed away from a brown-painted water fountain in a grocery store.  “What was that about?” I asked my Mom.

She whispered, “that fountain is for colored people.”  I couldn’t believe it.  I was still young and dumb, but I knew that was stupid.    There remained other much bigger stupidities.  I am reminded that shortly after Mr. Lee led his army to disaster at Gettysburg – which happens to be the regional designation for our current homestead - a national cemetery was established there to provide for proper burial of troops who died in the battle.  The President was in attendance and spoke a few words, wondering specifically if a nation dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal” could long endure. 

In the 1960’s this President’s birthday was still scarcely celebrated in La Florida.  I regret that I never joined a sit-in, but I was far too young to take so large a step.  Along the Gold Coast - the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale coastal area - there was little argument with the demands for equal rights.  I never saw a protest there. The saying went that South Florida was south of Dixie. In central Florida the story was very different.  I wondered how anyone could argue that equality was not a Constitutional requirement? Mr. Lincoln wondered too, I suppose.  In the 1960’s People continued to argue and federal troops were again needed to enforce that pesky Constitution. 

Today, after the pendulum swung too far and “reverse discrimination” became sanctioned by law, it is hard to imagine “separate but equal.”   Note:  Special rights, quotas, and the like, seemed a good idea originally “to remedy past discrimination.”   Sadly these perks have persisted too long, as do so many government programs.  Our new President could take the bull by the horns and end them, but he may not want to grab that bull just yet.

I digress.  Anne and I went to Sanibel this morning to look for birds.  There is a bridge to the island now.  In the 1960’s I went there by ferry.  The island was, of course, nicer then.  Some things don’t improve with time.  We went first to a marsh looking at first light for rails, but the marsh was dry and none were cackling.    We did find our first yellowthroat of the year and enjoyed a one-mile walk around the water.  Then we drove to the tin-can lighthouse, parked, and began a walk down the beach.  Already the wind was picking up.  We had been advised to walk west, but since the light is at the west most point of the island, the direction was a bit ambiguous.  I assumed we should be on the outside on the so-called high energy beach. 

We were looking for snowy plover, a tiny bird, and one of our favorites.  We couldn’t find it last year, and did not want to miss our chance this year.  We found it for the first time on Sanibel near Bowman’s Beach several years ago, but found none there last winter.  We have found several of this species on the south end of Estero Island, but access to that beach is difficult as public parking is virtually non-existent.  We planned to hike after it on Lover’s Key, but hearing a report of seven pairs along a mile of beach on Sanibel decided to go after it there.  Sanibel is close, six dollars buys the toll across the bridge, and another two dollars gets us two hours parking at the lighthouse.  These are small investments for such a prize.

The snowy plover is a tiny prize.  The color of dry white sand, at rest it is scarcely apparent, resembling a bump of sand with a stick-like bill.  Upright it stalks the beach ghostlike on slender black legs, seizing flies and sandhoppers among the seaweed along the high-tide mark.  Similar to the piping plover of the Atlantic coast, the snowy plover inhabits Gulf Coast beaches and salt flats in the far west.  Possibly Florida’s rarest bird, it is seriously threatened by coastal development and beach traffic. 

We joined the stream of beachwalkers and beachcombers covering the sand even on this unsettled morning.  Our course took us slightly higher up the beach than the paths of many of the others.  Walking in parallel I followed the high-tide strand and Anne walked a few meters farther up the beach to my right.  We scanned ahead both the wet and dry parts of the beach with binoculars looking for any lumps of sand with stick-like bills. 

We had walked almost a mile seeing none when a bit of sand moved in front of Chuck and ran out a few feet to the edge of the sea.  Chuck stopped and called to Anne who was walking on.  Both saw the bird and moved together to near the waves allowing the bird to zig-zag past other walkers and return to the weed strand.  We soon found two more among a flock of nearby sanderlings and watched them for several minutes.

A young woman walking by stopped and asked if we had seen snowy plovers.  Chuck pointed one out.  She said, “wonderful.”  A part-time resident she was probably the only one of the hundreds of people passing by who was even aware of this treasure. 

In the coming weeks some of the seven pairs of plovers will attempt to establish nesting locations there in the sand.  Volunteers will try to spot them, drive stakes into the ground, and run a tape around about a ten by ten foot section of this popular beach.  With a lot of luck the birds will remain undisturbed there for a few weeks and hatch out two or three tiny chicks that will join in the quest for beach arthropods. 

With an estimated population of three hundred, the snowy plover is the most threatened bird in Florida.  This morning for a brief period we were blessed to see a few of these powder-puffs scooting about among the people and their dogs moving up and down the beach.  We turned and walked back to the parking lot not knowing when we might again see this bird.  I doubt it will survive another decade on this beach.  I hope I am wrong.