May 2009

The two little guys I saw fighting and who I told to stop were indeed battling for their territory. These are the pictures from yesterday- I don’t know my little friends well enough to figure out if these were two different guys on either side of my front door or the same guy who just changed from side to side. I do know the guy on the right side posed for me- my camera was inches from in ( true- it was from the inside looking out the window) but he let me close enough to click and take several pictures! His pouch was bright cherry red and he kept opening and closing the pouch to either try and scare me off or impress me. I hope they’ll stick around all summer for me to watch them.

Who knew my cottage was a wildlife preserve! In between the rain drops this past week, I’ve had a chance to observe wildlife in action, literally just outside my front door!

David, our cottage handyman and retired editor from the AJC ( Atlanta’s newspaper) pointed out to me I have a very large nest in the palm tree outside my door with some sort of large bird and her 6 babies. This is not a small bird- this is some sort of wood stork or other large water bird. No chance of this nest blowing out of the tree- it looks like it’s made from large sticks! I tried to get a picture of the mom and babies, but I couldn’t quite get them to pose.

Then on the rail on my front porch area I saw two green geckos doing what I thought was the mating dance. Both their pouches beneath their neck became big and red, but then one lurched and grabbed the other’s head and looked like he was trying to eat the other!! I was so startled I yelled at them to stop which scared them both and one ran away. I think it was a fight and I saved the little guy’s life!

But the loudest and funniest wildlife visitors are the frogs. My next door neighbor has a large pond in their front yard as a direct result of all this rain. Whenever this happens we have a large group of big fat squishy frogs who have this deep throated croaking which sounds like ducks! The noise is so loud that inside even with the TV on, you can hear them over honking and croaking over and over!

Just more pleasures of living on a barrier sea island- no matter how well populated we are , the wild life finds a way to shine through!

All this rain ( and it’s still raining….) has resulted in great flowers in my window boxes and in front of the cottage. I took these yesterday when there was a brief ( yes very brief!) break in the rain… The entire island is over flowing with rain, but also beautiful gorgeous flowers!!!

I love nests. I love the concept of “nesting” as in being so happy in your own home ( nest) that you don’t ever want to leave. If I hadn’t named my own cottage Mermaid Manor I would have found a name that included the word nest. I actually just helped name one of our soon to be Mermaid Cottages which I’ve been sharing the process with you- Wrenn’s Nest ( more pictures and details to follow soon!)

This week while walking the dogs I’ve brought home 4 bird nests- all empty – and they now help decorate my home. There are little birds flying everywhere on the island and singing as well- it’s quite musical when you walk outside!

Enjoy my newest collection!