Old Florida, quietly kept.

Gopher Tortoise · Gopherus polyphemus

A keystone digger — its deep burrows shelter hundreds of other species. Grazes the open dune most mornings, and palm-sized hatchlings turn up in late summer.

Gopher Tortoise Hatchling · Gopherus polyphemus

Barely bigger than a silver dollar when it emerges, with a soft yellow-and-brown shell that hardens and darkens as it grows. It may be years before it digs a burrow of its own.

Florida Box Turtle · Terrapene carolina bauri

A land turtle, not a tortoise: the hinged shell closes like a box. Ambles the shaded plantings after rain.

Bobcat · Lynx rufus

The dune’s quiet predator — mostly nocturnal and seldom seen, though the game camera catches one crossing the sand more often than you’d guess.

Red-shouldered Hawk · Buteo lineatus

A vocal woodland hawk, often heard before it’s seen — a clear, repeated kee-yar from the palms. Hunts frogs, lizards, and snakes along the dune edge.

Cooper’s Hawk · Astur cooperii

A bird-hunting accipiter built for fast, low pursuit through cover. Turns up on fence posts and rooftops, watching the scrub.

Great Egret · Ardea alba

Stalks the courtyard and tide line on black legs, yellow bill lowered. Once hunted nearly to nothing for its plumes; now a welcome regular.

Brown Pelican · Pelecanus occidentalis

The one you’ll see most from the beach — gliding the wave line in single file, then folding into a dive. Back from the brink of DDT-era collapse.

Laughing Gull · Leucophaeus atricilla

The voice of this coast — that laughing call overhead is nearly always this bird. Black-hooded in summer, smudged gray by winter.

Ring-billed Gull · Larus delawarensis

The tidy, black-ringed-bill gull of the winter beach — smaller and cleaner-marked than the laughing gull, and just as interested in your lunch.

Gulf Fritillary · Agraulis vanillae

Silver-spangled beneath, deep orange above. Breeds on native passionvine and works the flowering beds all season.

Zebra Longwing · Heliconius charithonia

Florida’s state butterfly — slow, unbothered, and unusually long-lived. It roosts in groups and feeds on pollen as well as nectar.

Monarch · Danaus plexippus

The famous long-distance traveler, passing through on a multi-generation migration between the northern U.S. and the mountains of central Mexico. Its caterpillars feed only on milkweed.

Sea Turtle Hatchling

Loggerheads and green turtles both nest this stretch of sand. A hatchling is only a couple of inches long when it digs out of the nest — this one on our beach in a rare early-evening emergence.

The Dash to the Sea

Newly emerged, a hatchling makes straight for the brightest horizon — the open water. Only a tiny fraction will survive to return and nest one day, which is why every protected nest on this coast counts.