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Even if you are not a sports fan, if you consume any degree of social media, you likely have found yourself amused by the posts of international guests visiting stateside during this year’s FIFA World Cup.
Football (soccer) fans from around the world have gushed and marveled at everything from American restaurant portion sizes, unlimited drink refills, infinite ice cubes, a beaver-themed gas station, friendly and hospitable Americans, Ranch dressing, skyscraper heights, cowboy-hat options, free toilets, pizza-style variety, grocery-store breakfast cereal choices and unfamiliar levels of oppressive summer heat. I have read them and laughed along with their exuberance as they explore unfamiliar territory.
But the social-media posts that have really captured my attention have been these same visitors observing nature around them -- wondering aloud about what they were witnessing? Scottish guests, in particular, have been effusive in their observations.
Like the young Scottish woman on a 42-hour Greyhound bus ride from Boston to Miami who posted at each stop. In each post, she looked weary and a bit overwhelmed until at one stop along the way, she discovered a Northern mockingbird after she got off the bus. She smiled for the first time and admitted she had never seen one of these feisty little birds, capturing video footage of the bird hopping from branch to branch in a tree beside the bus parking lot. It was that spark of joy this young woman seemingly needed on what must have felt like the eternal bus ride.
Then, there was the Scottish comedian with the thick brogue who awoke early to watch the sun rise over the ocean at his hotel in Daytona Beach. He was en route from Boston to Miami for Scotland’s game against Brazil, but he was delighted to spend an evening in comfortable accommodations. The puzzling thing to him, however, was some verbiage on materials in his hotel room requesting that outdoor lights be shut off and blinds and curtains closed each night. The materials explained that it was sea turtle nesting season and that outdoor lights can confuse sea turtles. This gentleman was not familiar with sea-turtle etiquette and speculated that the hotel was just trying to save on its electricity bill.
Perhaps the best nature video was a wide-eyed Scotsman spending a day on the wildlife loop at Lake Apopka. He enthusiastically described the wildlife around him, capturing video footage of cruising alligators and birds he reckoned “looked like they came out of Jurassic Park.” He said he could nearly hear the Jurassic Park theme song playing in the background of this “wild Florida place” with nature actively moving all around.
And just as he was pointing out another passing alligator, there was a splash in the background and he wondered aloud in his video post, “What could that be?!”
Of course, that, my friends, is the allure of nature to us all.
Lisa D. Mickey
President, Friends of Canaveral
Lisa D. Mickey is a Florida Master Naturalist / Florida Land Steward
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