Birds Galore: The Wide Variety of Feathered Wildlife You Can Find in a Thriving Ecosystem [437]

Judith Kazen tells her story of the feathered Florida wildlife that hooked her and her husband.
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When my husband and I first started renting on Longboat key, we knew nothing about shorebirds or Florida birds. And so we started volunteering at Save Our Seabirds, which had just reopened that year after the Pelican Man had passed away. And we loved it, we cleaned cages, we fed birds, we, you know, we did everything cause it was very small and new and it was lots of fun. So then when we came down here, we got to see a lot more birds out in the wild. And the best thing was before Irma. There was a branch right near the office where yellow crowned night herons every year raised babies. And you could watch them from teeny babies to growing up. And my favorite story is. One year when they were ready to fledge and they could go out on the limb, they could fly, but they wanted to go back home and they wanted mommy and daddy to feed them. And one day I went by and mommy and daddy are flying at them. Like, they're dive bombing the babies, saying "Get out of the nest, you lazy babies." And they're like, "no, no, don't make us." And it just reminded me of humans so much.