Living on Wilderness Time by Walker Melissa;

Author:Walker, Melissa;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Eco Pond

DURING THE TIME I spent camping out in the Everglades, Eco Pond became my Walden. A few minutes after sunrise other campers would emerge from their tents, and one or two might wander down to the mudflats to watch the birds. About this time—7:00 A.M. or so—I would gather my cooking gear, store it in the van, and walk down the road to explore what was really a man-made evaporation pond. Birds by the hundreds came there to feed, nest, or just rest on their way to and from their rookery in Florida Bay to feeding waters further inland.

Eco Pond is small, about a half mile around, yet my first stroll along its shore lasted for hours. Just as I arrived a flock of white ibises arranged themselves in the buttonwood trees on an island in the middle of the pond. With them was one lone roseate spoonbill. Hiding in the grass near the edge of the lake was an American bittern, a secretive bird larger than the least bittern that even serious birders are thrilled to see at close range. On the first quarter of the path around the pond I passed a green-backed heron, various egrets, a tricolored heron, and a smooth-billed ani, a peculiar black bird with a floppy tail and parrotlike bill.

As I was watching the bittern creep about in the grasses at the edge of the water, I heard a roar that left me chilled to the bone. Scanning the water, I spotted a ten- or twelve-foot gator just in time to hear the fearsome sound again as the huge creature called for a mate. Thrusting its head and tail out of the water, it arched its back and somehow managed to bellow without opening its mouth. I watched in frozen fascination as the immense animal moved slowly through the water, stopping from time to time to arch its head and tail and roar again until it disappeared in a thicket of cattails some fifty feet away.

I knew that I was not at risk even though there was no barrier between this creature and me. Alligators will occasionally attack children and dogs, but hardly ever go for adults walking along a dry path ten feet away. What I felt was not so much fear as the thrill of witnessing the beginning of the process that would result in mating, nesting, eggs, a cache of about thirty eggs, and finally, months later, a dozen or more baby alligators. Eco Pond could never support such numbers, and even the one or two young that were likely to survive might have to migrate or be relocated to new waters.

I lowered my binoculars and continued to walk around the pond, but suddenly stopped again. There, only a few feet away, was another large alligator completely out of the water. In its mouth was a soft-shell turtle as big as a dinner platter. There was no evidence that the turtle was damaged, but it didn’t take much to imagine what was happening to its soft underside.

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