The Purple Martins are starting to return to their specially-designed, Jetsons-style birdhouses in Tradewinds Park. For those of you who don't know, Purple Martins are Swallows that return to North America from southern climes each year in order to spend the summer breeding. (Sort of the opposite of some of our Snowbirds, who drift down from chillier regions and while away the winter doing much the same thing.) Since this is South Florida and summer comes earlier here than in most other areas of the country, Purple Martins normally start showing up in March, with the whole diaspora well ensconced by the end of April. 

In case you're wondering, I am not a bird watcher but we sometimes walk the trails over at Tradewinds Park where it's hard to ignore the space-a-delic Purple Martin houses. We notice when these dwellings start filling up, as well as their gradual abandonment. 

Luckily for the birds, their houses have been constructed next to a fairly large pond, referred to locally as a "lake", which is a bit like referring to my bathtub as an Olympic-size swimming pool. The lake, of course, attracts all sorts of yummy insect life so the Purple Martins can keep up their strength for all that mating they're doing in those little love nests. 

There's also a nearby mini-jungle providing further dietary delicacies of the verminiferous kind for our fine, feathered friends. Incidentally, this bit of local Amazonia is bisected by the lake, separating the considerable acreage of Tradewinds Park from a wilder and woolier area reputed to be the haunt of everything from coyotes, racoons and feral cats to a homeless encampment. Walking through Tradewinds Park a couple of days ago, we noticed a snorkeler in the larger section of the lake, apparently unconcerned by signs warning water enthusiasts against swimming there. While alligators aren't known to be frequent guests of the waters, they do tend to pop up every now and then, hence the advisory. 

Much of this portion of Tradewinds Park also serves as a disc-golf course so we figured the snorkeler was collecting errant discs from the lake. Why this would be worth the possibility of becoming an alligator's meal beats me but we could come up with no other alternative explanation. When we passed back by a half hour later, the snorkeler was nowhere to be seen. Well, it was lunch time, after all, hopefully for the snorkeler and not the gator, although we weren't much concerned either way. 

I almost forgot to mention the playground which is usually packed with screaming, rambunctious kids and older adults huddled around picnic tables playing mah-jongg or backgammon or some other game that requires a rigorous attention span I do not possess. There's a large ball field, seemingly all-purpose, able to be converted from a baseball diamond to a soccer playing field on short notice, or so it appears. At the current moment, the COVID testing drive-thru tents, erected during the height of the pandemic, are still in use although I expect them to come down any day. 

Undoubtedly the biggest attraction in Tradewinds Park is Butterfly World, which, per their website, consists of butterfly and tropical bird aviaries, botanical gardens and a working butterfly farm and research center. It is the largest butterfly park in the world, and the first of its kind in the Western hemisphere. I was there--maybe 12 years ago, maybe more--when a good friend came to visit from Texas, and I remember it being pretty amazing. C & I really should go back sometime since it's a mere 5 minute drive from our house. Butterfly World, it turns out, is a pretty big deal, and apparently draws tourists from all over the world. Who knew? 

The north side of the park is usually much more serene if solitude is your scene. However, to get to the north side, you must first cross Sample Road, the excruciatingly busy east-west thoroughfare that divides Tradewinds Park in half. This north side is where the annual Christmas lights display happens, but, other than a few horse stables and wide open fields for riding, there's not much else going on over here. 

Overlooking all this, just east of the turnpike, is the mini-mountain of incinerated garbage affectionately known as Mt. Trashmore. On any given day, various pickup trucks and heavy equipment machines scurry up, down and around this ever-growing, often fetid marvel of waste disposal. With patches of green partly carpeting its slopes, Mt. Trashmore may initially appear, to those unfamiliar with its intent, to be some charming, minor eminence rising from the densely populated suburban flatlands below. But only if the wind is blowing in the opposite direction. 

Once the weather gets really, really hot (there are varying degrees of hot down here), the Purple Martins tend to pack up and go back to Brazil, or whatever other South American sanctuary they call home. Meanwhile, the Snowbirds will have scattered back to whence they came until the first bite of winter hastens their return. We, of course, don't go near the park in the high heat of summer, no matter how inviting its tranquility. By then, the beaches will be (relatively) tourist-free and finally approachable so we have that to look forward to. At least we can cool off in the ocean, although that is not without its inherent risks. 

If you've managed to read this far, you're probably wondering why the fuck is he writing about birds and his local park? Is this now a travelogue? Well, I don't know, honestly. I just know that I needed to write about something other than the ever-increasing casualties in Ukraine, the threat posed by armed ignoramuses taking charge of nuclear reactors, self-obsessed, crybaby "truckers" clogging up the roadways in our nation's capital, the continued deterioration of women's and LGBTQ+ rights under Ron DeSantis' death watch right here in Florida. I could go on. I should go on. But I won't. Today, I want to riff about the Purple Martins and their birdhouses, and about lakes and green spaces. With all the ugliness in the world it's easy to forget that there is still beauty in nature, however tenuous it may be. The key is to enjoy it in whatever moments we have. Peace and love to President Volodymyr Zelensky, his family, and to the incredibly brave people of Ukraine.