Fairy Eyes at Night

Yesterday we began a workshop for teachers that included a night time boat trip on the Hillsborough River. With our little Carolina Skiffs and electric motors, we took two dozen educators out to "shine for gators"...find alligators with flashlights by looking for their eye reflections. Gators are very easy to spot if you hold the flashlight next to your head and look along the edge of the river.  The bright red to hot yellow reflection gives them away!

The spiders' eyes also show up as little sparky light, though not as brightly as the gators, all along the waters edge, at the base of the trees.  The teachers were amazed at how many spiders there were, and I loved how one teacher referred to them as "fairy eyes"!  That dispelled a great deal of fear in my boat.  

Birds flew off their roosts, and when lit up with a flashlight, were almost eerie in their appearance, floating in the spotlight mid-air.  The frogs sang, the crickets chirped and there were tons of unrecognizable sounds as well.  The gar swam silently beneath the surface and were easy to spot with a strong flashlight beam.  One fish must have been disturbed by my motor and flushed himself right out of the water so high that I thought he was going to flip into the boat at my feet.  

It was a great experience and one I hope every person can enjoy.  The night was beautiful, not scary, and my passengers visibly relaxed as the night went on.  By the end of the trip, we recognized that we had bats, not giant insect, diving in and out of our flashlight beams, eating the insects we were attracting.  This is an activity I would certainly do again.  I hope they will too!

Photo by Karen Folsom.