Eye On Nature

Keeping an eye on nature is not hard to do when you are out on the Laguna Madre almost every day.
Many of us are and we get to see many wonderful events take place that most only get to see on the television.
Getting out in nature by boat allows one to view nature in a totally different way. It seems that when you are on a boat, wildlife does not feel threatened by your presence, if you approach quietly and calmly.
And so through the years I have shared many of these nature events with you but now I have a new one to share.
I was out with five birders who wanted to see some very special birds we have here and enjoy our very special dolphin tribe.
So off we skimmed in the calm, early morning of Sunday and we were all elated how quiet and still the bay waters were.
We headed for South Bay, a very special place in my heart and the hearts of many a fisherman. But fish was not our goal. We wanted birds.
The tide was so super high that it allowed my mama mia boat to get very close to shore. And that is when we saw our nature adventure sight. A young coyote, a wily one indeed, was playing with something right on the water’s edge. I pulled up my camera and began clicking away as the five birders enjoyed the sight through their binos.
This gave them super vision and they all began chuckling as they saw what the coyote was busy with. It was a land crab, one of our giant blue mangrove crabs that have a huge pinching claw.
This coyote had obviously mastered the art of declawing this crab to make a meal of it. But not without a wince of pain as the crab pinched his tongue. For that the crab was flung into the air and stomped on and with a swift bite, the claw was immobilized enough for the coyote to make a quick meal of this large meaty land crab.
I took a long series of photos but this is my favorite as he winced after being pinched. We watched him for some time as he searched for more tasty meals in the mangrove fingers.
He walked within feet of us and barely took notice of us. We all felt totally absorbed in the moment and forgot about birds to be enthralled by this intelligent, totally wild young and sly creature.
And not to worry, our birds appeared right in front of us, too, and then not long after our dolphins came to play with us on the bay.
Keeping an eye on our nature, Scarlet Colley, Dolphinwhisper on Facebook, from the SPI Dolphin Research and Sea Life Center located at 110 N. Garcia St. next to Pirate’s Landing, spisealife.org, 956-299-1957.