Stork and Spoonbill

The stork and roseate spoonbill must be friends.
There's no way around the display we saw.
As the tall stork stooped to the rippling bends
In a three-point stance with its walking jaw,
The spoonbill came swooping; probing it draws
Like a metal detector its flat beak
Back and forth through the water as it trawls
Behind the wood stork's singular technique.
They carry along this way for a streak
Before they happen on the bank of sand.
Together they create a most unique
Sight: the spoonbill prancing while the stork stands.
Then they both settle, basking in the light, 
These two wading birds, one pink and one white.

The Limpkin

The limpkin resembles a toppled vase, 
Dappled with white spots on its wings
And woody down; and flowing out
Like a rush of water, its neck,
Brilliantly flecked with flashing white,
Ends in its beautiful beak that curves
Very slightly, harpoonlike, probing
Through shallow waters, silt, and clay
For submerged mollusks to pick apart.
Its legs are fully half its height:
Walking sticks deliberate 
In planting their quadrupod toes.

The limpkin was endangered once,
Hunted for its plumage's art.
Capricious supply and demand,
The vilest trait of humankind,
Came close to etching its demise;
But thanks is due to providence
Whose power turns curses around.
When the invasive apple snail
Took Florida, the limpkin found
An ecosystem it could thrive 
In again, pulling prodigious
Amounts of shells from the freshwater
Marshes and creeks; if not for that,
I may have never had the chance
To see the little limpkin fly
Over the ripples of the pond,
Gliding down to the verdant banks
To trod with twiggy little legs
At the shoreline; where dragonflies,
Blue and pink, black and red,
Glimmering gold and shining jade,
Flit across the surface and mate,
Coupling in flight and performing
Their strange dance on the water's edge.

Pond Scene

Perching upon a branch
The great gray heron waits.
Water scurrying by
With schools of tiny fish
Who don't know it's above.

Flashes flutter beneath;
Silver silhouettes swim
Alongside little domes
That breach the surface line,
Raising curious heads
With colorful streaked sides—
Pond sliders peeking out.

Across the pond I see
A white party of birds.
In this wading group, one,
Skinny and statuesque,
Stands above all the rest.
A great white egret waits
As tiny ibises
Pick and poke through the grass;
And two diminutive
Snowy egrets play,
The one chasing his mate
Until she takes to flight,
Landing a couple feet
Away. He flies in suit,
Tracing upon the blue 
His little yellow pair
Of banana peel feet.

Overhead rose a cry
Like raspy guiro scrapes;
A long shadow appeared:
A great grey heron flies,
Attracting the branch-sat
One, engaging their wings
Toward the high treetops.
They circle in a pair
Once and a second time,
Then a third circuit make
Before they disappear
Within the woody heights.

The Pond and its Birds

These birds that live on the banks of the pond
Are the reason we give thanks to the pond.

The muscovy ducks with their feather coats
Brass-green as the waters flanking the pond;

The poking beaks of the white ibises 
Who sometimes descend in ranks on the pond;

The tall, fluffy wood stork we wish to hug,
Who with lengthy gray beak shanks through the pond;

The cormorant who spreads its wings to dry
On the bridge's wooden planks at the pond;

The limpkin dappled with brown and white spots
Eating the mollusks it yanks from the pond;

The great white egret and grand herons gray
Who wade with their legs so lank through the pond;

And Lefty the mallard, though he can't fly,
His personality anchors the pond.

So prays the ♡ and W who trace
All that they love in this tranquillest pond.