Tag: Selby Gardens

Image of Sarasota Bay skyline

Tidy Tidbits: Mostly Nature

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AN INCREDIBLE LIFE, A HUGE LOSS

RBG hung on for a very long time through multiple bouts of cancer.  What a trouper she was and what a magnificent justice and advocate for equal rights!  Such an impressive woman.  Thank you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for your powerful intellect, your undiminished passion, and for all you achieved.  You will be missed.  

The Chief Penguin and I had the distinct privilege and pleasure of hearing Justice Ginsburg speak in Aspen a few years ago, and it was both:  a privilege and a pleasure.

A RESTORATIVE

Tree trunk at Selby

Selby Gardens in Sarasota is a favorite place of ours and we often take family and visiting friends there.  Since Covid, we had not returned for a long while, but today made a brief visit.  I wanted to see the glass art on display and was very ready for a change of scene.  

Purple glass vase
Artist is Duncan McClellan
Yellow green large vase etched in brown
Green Farm by Duncan McClellan

We arrived about ten minutes before opening and joined three other masked couples ahead of us in line.  The experience was wonderful.  Very few people, lots of plants in bloom (can’t recall ever coming in September), and I saw the glass on the exhibit’s last day.  

Shallow glass bowls on the pond

It was overcast with a light breeze and not at all hot.  We meandered through the conservatory and then outside among the plants, claiming a bench to take in this view of the bay.  I left feeling relaxed and rejuvenated.  For a time, life seemed normal.

Looking out at Sarasota Bay toward Lido Key
Sarasota Bay from Selby Gardens

NATURE ON SCREEN

Islands of Wonder:  Madagascar (PBS)

This is part of a series on unique islands around the world.  The listing caught my eye because the Chief Penguin and I spent three weeks in Madagascar in 2009 when we worked at the California Academy of Sciences.  The Academy had several research projects underway there, and our fellow travelers were the chief botany curator, a trustee, their wives, and a local guide.  We flew in and out of the capital city airport in Antananarivo, informally known as “Tana,” and then traveled by van to rainforests, desert, and mountains.  

Madagascar, east of mainland Africa, is the oldest island on earth.   Due to its isolated location, it has an astounding number of species found only there. Perhaps best known are the many varieties of lemurs, and they feature extensively in this visually stunning show.  From ring-tailed ones to dancing sifakas, one learns how lemurs have adapted to challenging habitats.  Add to that unusual lizards, strange birds, and the cute, hedgehog-like tenrec.  

Madagascar’s topography is also awe-inspiring from its dense rainforests on the east to the spiny desert in the west to the needle-sharp limestone Tsingy mountains.  For anyone interested in nature and biodiversity, this is a fascinating introduction to a very special place!

Note: Photos by JWFarrington. Header photo is the bay and Sarasota skyline.

Tidy Tidbits: Birds, Beaches & Books

JWF Leave a comment

NATURE

My sister and brother-in-law, an avid birder and an apprentice birder (self-named), visited us this week and the focus was on birds.  It’s the off season for good sightings, but my sister kept a list of birds seen in Florida anyway.  I think she got to forty before they departed.  Lots of shore birds as we had breakfast at the beach cafe, walked the beach, strolled the loop at Leffis Key, and then made a before-dinner excursion to the tip of Longboat Key.  For this last, we were on a quest to see a roseate spoonbill.  I have actually seen these delectable-looking pink birds twice now, but she had not.

Unbeknownst to me, my spouse had packed a cooler with champagne glasses and a bottle of rose’ champagne to toast the sighting of said spoonbill.  No luck, lots of terns and gulls, but no spoonbills.  We returned home for drinks on the porch, the rose’ now having been poured, and, with binoculars in hand, spotted the usual egrets and, noteworthy for me, a wood stork, a bird I’d never seen before.  Then, lo and behold, my sister spied a bit of pink fluff in the water and we had our roseate spoonbill!  We kidded my husband about arranging it, but it was sheer happenstance.

www.carolinabirdclub.org
www.carolinabirdclub.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the week, we made the trek down to Myakka River State Park where we walked the nature trail and across their short, but high canopy walk.  The suspended walkway is 25 feet above ground and at the end you climb to 75 feet for an expansive view of field and trees.  It was clear and for us earth-bound creatures a rare view.

Closer to home, we explored the small, but lovely, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, right in downtown Sarasota.  Their specialty is epiphytes and the conservatory had many, many examples of these dependent plants including lovely orchids along with some bromeliads (pineapple, for example).

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Outside, there’s a children’s rainforest area, a canopy walk, and a meandering path down to Sarasota Bay along which we studied the white ibis pictured here.  We had the added good fortune of being able to view their annual juried photography show, “Found in Florida,” which we all loved.

READING

Having just completed David McCullough’s new biography, The Wright Brothers, I am more closely observing birds in flight, something Wilbur spent many hours engaged in as he and Orville designed their early airplanes.  Hard working, quite modest, and very determined, with a smart sister who both encouraged and sustained them, the Wright Brothers persevered in isolation to get it right.  They were not showmen like some of the more daring French aviators, but rather avoided the limelight as long as possible.  Neither brother ever married and their sister, Kate, only did so late in life.  They all lived together in Dayton, Ohio, with their father, a traveling preacher.

McCullough’s writing is solid and matter of fact, making for a straightforward account of the brothers’ journey from being bicycle builders to inventors of successful flying machines.  I’m certain I will be more appreciative (perhaps “awestruck” is a better word choice) at the marvels of air travel the next time I fly.

 

[Note:  All photos are the author’s work unless otherwise indicated.]