PART I
When we first purchased our yellow pine constructed, yellow hued beach cottage on this small island community called Fort Myers Beach or Estero Island back in 1999, I took stock of the extensive, unattended landscaping that we had inherited and sprang into action. As the house had been vacant for months before we took charge of it, half of the landscaping was dying and the other half was overgrown. We needed a lawn mower, shovels, large and smaller clippers for the tropical trees and bushes . . . . and gardening gloves. I sent him off to Home Depot.
The prior owners had planted on either side of the front steps, just beyond the white wood railings, sea grape trees, in good color and condition. I encouraged their continued presence and growth by engaging them with care and compost, a method of providing nourishment that I picked up through the knowledge and experience of my neighbor, Bonnie, a therapist by trade and naturalist by lifestyle. She told me at the beginning of our relationship to stick with indigenous species as I planned my yard and garden, that our hot, scorching sun would not look kindly upon northern transplants. Through much trial and error, I was finally forced to agree with her.
I manipulated the direction of the development of the sea grape trees by the way in which I groomed the branches. I wished the two trees to come together to form an arch over the front entrance to our house. I was successful in my efforts. After only two years, or more significantly, two summers, my arch was formed and it continued to strengthen in density and strength.
We were the beneficiaries of an unexpected boon due to the very existence of the arch, for I had planned it for aesthetic value alone. A flock of visitors seemed positively drawn to us. We were treated to frequent visits from a variety of bird species. From the discretion of the living room, we watched them folic upon the branches of the arch. I sent him off to Home Depot again, this time for a plastic bird house to fill with seeds and hang upon the branches of the arch. I didn't wish our new and fine feathered friends to go hungry.
I always display a wreath upon the front door of our hosue. I change it periodically, for seasonal or holiday considerations. This past February, I happened to come across a pretty Valentine wreath one day while out perusing the local shops. Hand-made and of course, heart-shaped, the wreath was covered with strips of pink and green cloth, glued attractively to the heart-shaped bamboo core.
Valentine's Day came and went as swiftly as a tropical breeze, and a gift certificate for a spa day, courtesy of my husband, seemed to be the only item to show for it, or so I thought. Little did I suspect the other Valentine's Day surprise in store for me.
Another Saturday in April in paradise, meaning a manicure, shopping, running along the beach with Red, our well fed or overfed Rhodesian Ridgeback. While at a consignment shop, I happened to come across an unusual and colorful wreath, the intertwined red, white and blue ribbons indicating Fourth of July and Summertime. I purchased it and anticipated replacing the Valentine wreath with the new one. I realized that I was going from one holiday right into another and probably should have also purchased a transitional spring wreath, as April seemed too early to display the Red, White and Blue, the warm Florida weather notwithstanding.
On my way into the house that evening, I glanced up at the Valentine's wreath to compare it in size to the new wreath and noted a bird standing atop it, a twig in her mouth. I didn't think anything about it, as we were now used to seeing birds flying in and out of the area of the arch. A couple of days later, just retuning from a day at the office, I looked about the yard, noting the weeding, etc, that would require my attention the coming weekend as we were expecting a relative for visit, and then I thought of the new wreath that I had put away in a closet. It was time to switch wreaths. I approached the steps, looked up and reached out my hands to take down the Valentine wreath. I was stopped dead in my tracks. There was now a full fledged nest on my wreath and a bird was slitting upon that nest, a dove, a mourning dove.
Quietly, I crept up the last two steps and opened the front door. In hushed tones, I clued my husband in as to what was going on and he then stepped outside to witness the miracle.
From then on, we tried to remember to close the door quietly as we ran in and out. We instructed the dog to bark a little less loudly when she spotted Sadie, the neighborhood cat in the yard, jumping up on my convertible top to snooze a spell, or when our neighbor, Mike, took his mutt. Sammy, for a walk, as he tended to do a couple of times a day at least.
I waited to be awakened by the sound of the bird babies. We thought that the great event would occur the next day or the day after. Hardly. Nearly two weeks passed. We noted that the mother bird's mate visited her, and that they exchanged places on the nest. One evening, we had a bad thunderstorm and some hard rain. This was actually a welcome relief for all the area of Southwest Florida, as we had been stuck in the middle of a drought. The watering of grass, plants and cars had already been limited to two days a week between certain hours, early morning and late afternoon. The rivers were low. New wild fires broke out daily on the mainland and we often smelled the smoke.
The wonderful weather we had been enjoying this May, warm and breezy, low in humidity was unfortunately fueling the fires. Therefore, the increase of humidity that had occurred during this afternoon, and then the ensuring thunderstorm was seen as very good thing by nearly everybody.
However, I worried about the mother bird and her chicks to be living through the storm, for we didn't have a large overhang. I checked on her status after the lightning and rain subsided a bit. She had survived it. I just hoped that the little chicks would be born by June and the start of the rainy season.
Comments(2)