15 The spoonbill comes into its own 



air, and I could hear the silence of the mangrove, its deliberate, 

 unhurried, unheeding silence. 



I remember my first visit to the hidden pools near the southern 

 tip of the key. Here the red mangrove is dominant. Where the 

 Great Hurricane maimed and killed older trees that were intent 

 on marching out across the broad flats of marl and turtle grass 

 a whole new growth of red mangrove has come forth. A narrow 

 tidal creek enters the key along this southern rim, but the en- 

 trance is lost behind the stiltlike fingers and glistening boughs of 

 the red mangrove. Inside, where the less spectacular black man- 

 grove has taken over the endless task of land building, one can 

 trace the winding course of the little stream, and then it is once 

 more lost in a series of tiny pools, silent and enigmatic. The red 

 mangrove is on the march, as it has marched with unbroken stride 

 since the Eocene. 



As I stepped over and under tangled roots and brushed aside 

 the network of branches, my legs sank to above the knees in 

 treacherous mud. I pulled myself out by grasping at roots and 

 boughs, half falling, half crawling, and moving forward slowly and 

 painfully. The annoyed grunting notes of Louisiana herons, dis- 

 turbed in their graceful and expert search for killifishes, the far- 

 off, muffled protest of a fish hawk were the only sounds. Up ahead 

 I saw a narrow opening in the wall of vegetation, and beyond, 

 scarcely visible, a broad pool mud and a thin layer of water. At 

 the same moment I heard the low, rapid huh-huh-huh note of a 

 roseate spoonbill and the startling woof-woof of its wings. As I 

 emerged, wet and weary, at the rim of the opening, two spoon- 

 bills, necks outthrust, scaled in short circles close overhead, their 

 delicate pinks and deep carmines brilliant against the blue space of 

 sky. 



Somewhere in that now immense tangle there was a nest. I felt 

 sure of that because the spoonbills kept swinging by overhead, 

 opening their incredible bills to protest in that steady, subdued 

 note of alarm. With an uneasy coolness I began to search. The mud 

 was softer and deeper away from the edges of the pool. I found 

 it difficult to get across. Impossible! I fell down, in a ridiculous 

 sidewise posture. I pulled my legs and feet from the tentacles of 



