Limpkins | A Quiet Observation

There was still enough daylight left to do a little exploring. My friend, Pam, and I had just arrived and unpacked for a 12-day stay near Inverness, Florida, and we'd heard that the tiny island on Lake Ellen was a natural habitat.

We soon learned that was an understatement.

As we paddled the canoes and approached the nearby marsh reeds, there was movement, and I saw what I thought was a juvenile Ibis: long beak, dark feathers...but lacking the many white feathers I'd seen on juvenile Ibises in the past.

Then it let out its call. Its eerie call...a call that will now always be identified with this trip. It was not an Ibis; it was a Limpkin, and the first of many we would see.

The Limpkin on the marshy shore, the first evening we were there. Look at those feet!

We soon realized that their presence was indicative of this lake being healthy. Limpkins love to eat Apple Snails, and they left traces of them all along the shore near the house we had rented.

We learned something new each time we paddled out. On the first morning, knowing almost nothing about Limpkins, I was surprised to see some way up on the branches of Cypress trees -- large, odd looking shapes in a mysterious setting.

Soon, I was looking for them -- and finding them -- in many branches,

and as I paddled near the shore.

By night, their haunting call sometimes broke through the darkness. By day, I heard them communicate back and forth to each other, their voices echoing across the water.

What was most delightful though, was getting to know one particular Limpkin family. They became "our" Limpkin family: the ones we would look for when we paddled back from an early morning lake exploration; the ones whose young we would count each morning and evening to make sure that all five were still safe.

Each morning, the attentive father and mother would gather their five little ones and swim from the tiny island in the center of the lake to the shore just down from our rental house. Slowly the adults made their way along in the muddy reeds, hunting for Apple Snails and using their long beaks to break the animals out of the shells. Then they fed the snails to their hungry young, whose peeps were often the only evidence of their presence, their downy bodies well hidden in the grasses.

One day we were eating breakfast on the back porch when we saw the adults coming up the shore. Standing in the shadows, we stood quietly and watched as the parents hunted for the Apple Snails...

...and fed them to their young.

Over the days, we watched as the little ones grew stronger and ventured into other grassy areas, their parents guiding the way.

But then there was that moment when we were quietly a part of, but also apart from, something beautiful transpiring in nature.

It happened on our last evening.

We'd paddled out in the canoes to watch another bird family make their way to the little island -- Sandhill Cranes, who also were raising a young one in that little habitat. (You can read about them here.)

The Limpkins had already arrived on the island for the evening. As the breeze picked up, my canoe quietly drifted closer to the reeds of the little island. I realized it would be more disturbing to pick up my paddle than to just sit there and take in the evening. That's when I got to watch nature's stage through a curtain of grasses. One of the little Limpkins was close by, peeping. Soon a parent arrived and offered a snail to the little one -- a snail that seemed so big for the little guy but apparently was just right.

It was absolutely beautiful. Just one moment -- one quiet moment, but it happened right there.

I waited until the Limpkins and their young walked on around the bend of the island before paddling away. Evening was upon us, and packing was still ahead.

But the experience was a closure to a time I shall never forget.

My nature journal entry of what I learned about Limpkins.

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Each week I send a short nature email called "A Closer Look." It is simply a little bit of original writing (much shorter than this blog post) and one of my nature photographs. If you would like to receive "A Closer Look," please fill out the form near the bottom of the Contact/Subscribe page of my website, www.wren-photos.com. Also on the website you can find photographs, greeting cards and my book, as well as other blog posts.

Thank you for reading! -- Susanne Swing Thompson