Among our activities yesterday, we went on a “BayWalk” which is nothing like Baywatch but reminds me of those patches of restored prairie in the Midwest. Basically, the concept is that the island’s natural habitat has been completely destroyed over the course of 100 years of development, so now they’re working to bring some of it back and maintain it. It’s that completely artificial experience of “conserved” nature that dominates both the vast majority of experiences of nature for people in urban societies, and – I suspect – also dominates the ecological imagination. Anyway, we got to see tons of baby fish swimming around, a bunch of weird birds and lizards, and a group of large fish that Carrie at first mistook for sharks, which just made them that much cooler (we were both looking for the telltale dorsal fin). We also got to see a couple dolphins, the first of which was really exciting to see.
Today is cloudy, so we are off to see if we can watch some manatees and dolphins from one of the piers on the north side of the island.
Updates:
–no part of my body is tan. There is only red and white.
–sandpipers are still my new favorite bird.