The more I thought about this topic the more I came to realize how vast the difference is between my northern city exposure to animals in the wild and my southern exposure to REAL animals in the wild. I remember my dad taking me to Boston Commons to feed the pigeons some peanuts. It was a blast; Pigeons can smell a peanut from miles away, you feed one and minutes later, this is what you get:
This was great fun; they would wind up in a feeding frenzy over the peanuts. Some people say that pigeons are dirty birds. I don’t know about that, but they are not respected very much as some consider them to be one of the dumbest animals due to the size of their brain-peanut size, go figure.
Now down south, I haven’t seen many free range pigeons about, but what we have here are creatures that don’t care too much about peanuts – we have meat eaters.
I do follow Florida Statute 372.667 to the letter. Just 10 minutes from my house is one of the most beautiful places in the South, Wakulla Springs State Park. You can take a boat ride and see many of these creatures sunning on the banks or in the water looking for their next meal. Now, don't you think this picture below is a little more intimidating than the calm, relaxing pigeon feeding frenzy above?
I don’t think they are looking for peanuts.
Another creature that I see down here almost every day is the Turkey vulture:
The Turkey Vulture feeds primarily on a wide variety of carrion, from small mammals to large grazers, preferring those recently dead, and avoiding carcasses that have reached the point of putrefaction. Now, you won’t see these meat eaters on the Boston Commons. As a matter of fact, I just came back from the store and noticed three of these birds on the side of the road feeding on some unfortunate road kill, forget the peanuts, throw these guys a T Bone steak and get out of the way!
Yup, an outing to the park is a little different down here.
