Why You Don't Need Pet Birds In Bokeelia

Renting a place in Bokeelia is an adventure all by itself. This trip, my son found an old house on a canal that had been renovated. It was really perfect for our needs. The owners had taken an old 60's two bedroom house that had probably been built for a net fisherman and modernized the place with a great deck and boat setup. In fact, the boat lift and accessories were everything you could want for keeping your boat there.

For me, and added bonus was the daily visit from a local white heron. I was quite startled the first time I saw him peeking in our back door, but Pam and I both soon realized that this was more his house than it was ours. Something I've noticed about my birds and this guy, was that birds can have a preference for people at first meeting. This guy preferred my wife and she was beaming about that, since she has never been able to get Bogey, our parrot at home, to be nice to her. This heron, whenever he saw Pam, he went running over to her...and I'm the guy with the food! The strangest thing was, I had the distinct impression that bird would have walked right into the house behind Pam if we left the door open.

You may think that this was some kind of odd relationship, but even more interesting, was our neighbor across the canal. Canal living is a very different thing. You sit out on the back porch, and your entertainment is what your neighbor is up to. Our neighbor was the real deal. A junky old house, junky old yard, junky old boats, crab traps everywhere. His old beat up pick truck had a hand lettered sign on the back, in the fashion of those signs that proclaim that Jesus is Coming! His sign said, If you must drive 10 miles under the speed limit, pull over, park and walk. So much for laid back island living!

The thing about this guy, was that he looked kind of like me, after being marooned on a desert island for 7 years and spending most of my time with my BFF coconut.

One day, I sat sipping  a cup of coffee, watching while he cleaned up his catch of the day and he was surrounded by great birds. There must have been 10 of them hanging all about and to top that off, he had a cat wandering around the yard. Nobody seemed to mind each other, they just got along.

I'd love to have some photos of this....perhaps that is a job best left to the wife....