Jesus is not the only one jogging. Inspired by lengthening days and Doctor Mama, I have (re)started a regular running regimen, vowing to hit the pavement at least thrice a week. Unfortunately my newly-found zeal corresponded with a spring snowstorm, so two of my three sessions last week were conducted on a treadmill, where I was once again exposed to waaay too much CNN. But now I’m in Florida for the weekend, and I’m once again able to run outside.

The weather has been perfect: sunny but cool, no bugs but plenty of other fauna. Since Friday I’ve spotted the following during walks and runs:

  • A parrot on a telephone wire. This is, apparently, not an escaped pet, but a wild parrot.
  • A turkey vulture trying to menace an owl out of his breakfast.
  • A bunch of small egret/stork-like things I haven’t been able to identify. I’ve seen these on the beach before, but these were well inland.
  • A bird that appeared to be the love-child of a duck and a turkey, also unidentifiable.

I was pretty excited about my bird-spotting, because Husband and I have a kind of informal wildlife-spotting competition. Wouldn’t you know it — when I called Husband tonight, he said he and Aitch saw a seal cub on the beach. He allegedly has some video to prove it, but it hasn’t shown up in my e-mail yet.

At any rate, I can now add the foregoing fowl to the turkey, deer, jackrabbit, seal, shark, warblers, bat, and, uh, ladybug to my list.

Ye Gods, there are a lot of boring animal-watching posts on this blog.

The post title comes courtesy of the metaphysical poet George Herbert— click if you are in the mood for a beautiful holiday-appropriate poem. I really wanted to write a parody in the form of a snowman, but couldn’t get it together in time.