I don’t usually carry a camera when I commute…I wish I did more often, but it is one extra thing to worry about. Today, though, I had some time on my hands and I wanted to snap a disturbing photo to share with you.
Before that, though, I got a couple shots of something most of us don’t get to see very often on our commutes. We’re used to seeing cars, buildings and the like, but when was the last time you saw a dolphin on your commute?!?
Just a few blocks from where I work is the Tampa Convention Center, home of the fabled (and way behind schedule) Tampa Riverwalk. This section of the Riverwalk is at the confluence of the Hillsborough River and both Seddon and Garrison Channels. I was standing at the seawall, catching my breath and getting a drink of water when I saw a couple of huge splashes. I whipped out my camera just in time to capture a young Tursiops truncatus, the Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin, chasing a fat mullet…
You can see him just to the right of the red arrow:
And here he is ducking under the edge of the seawall:
How cool is that? There were at least three others feeding in the area, but my batteries died on me so I didn’t get shots of them. I’ll go back, though…it was exciting to see such beautiful creatures mere feet away from me!
After that, I took a spin over to Tampa General Hospital, where a crosswalk sign caught my eyes a few months ago. Within days of the installation of this sign, I noticed that it had some damage done to it. Since then, the damage has only gotten worse:
Yeah, that’s right: cars keep driving OVER this sign! This sign is placed squarely in the middle of a well-trafficked crosswalk that separates the hospital’s parking garage from Davis Islands, where there are a number of hospital-affiliated offices. It’s a surprise that no one has gotten creamed by a vehicle here; if motorists can’t avoid a bright green warning sign, what’s to stop them from hitting a person?
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Hi Jack,
I must say that beats all the rabbits and pheasants I see every day! I’m starting to have a nice collection of weird Belgian traffic signs, would you be interested?
Grtz
Yes, email them to me with translations and I’ll put ‘em up to share with everyone.
I have a similar crosswalk sign in the area (2, actually, close to one another, about 3 blocks apart) that have suffered similar fates. In fact, one of them gets knocked completely out of the ground on occasion. I think it’s been replaced 4 times or so in a little over a year.
wow how can any one miss those bright signs. A local mayor placed some of those on a state highway to make the crosswalks more useable in his small town. The state Department of Trans. tried to take them down because they deemed it trespassing. Logic finally ruled and the signs are still up.
Same thing happend around my mom’s neighborhood. The city’s solution? They placed a stop sign instead of the flimsy sign. First couple of weeks, the police was having a field day stopping drivers that didn’t notice the new signs.
Nice commute surprise! My commute entails both a drive (unfortunately) and a bike ride. A couple of weeks ago while driving across the St. Johns River I saw a pod of manatees making quite the splash in some shallows. Unfortunately I was sans camera at the time. Good post.
wow how cool is that! It’s Flipper!
That’s awesome! Commuting in Florida has some great benefits indeed — I get some dolphins occasionally (not that up-close), but more often I see manatees, and awesome birds just about every day.
The real highlight was in April, when I was lucky enough to have my camera on the ONE time I’ve seen a family of otters!
They use those signs all over the place in some of the places I work. Most drivers have no clue where the corner of their cars are and will hit things that they think they are feet away from and in other cases miss something by 4 or 5 feet because they are afraid to they are too close. I actually ran over one of those signs at the Indianapolis airport about a month ago. They had the lane partially blocked and it was run over the sign or get taken out by a shuttle bus.
Aaron
Aaron, I think you made the right choice in that instance.
Gabriel…OTTERS! I love otters, but I’ve only seen one in “the wild” once, and that was a long way from Tampa. We were on a tubing trip down the fabled Ichetucknee River. I’ve seen the occasional manatee and dolphin swimming in the Hillsborough River, but never 1) this close and 2) when I actually had a camera with me.
How about some alligators?
Too urban for gators…I’d love to see them, though, as I LOVE alligators. There is one alligator for every 12 people in Florida, last time they did a census of the gator population.
Out of all of the above, though, ‘gators are certainly the EASIEST to find in Florida. Just about any body of water bigger than a Dixie cup has them.
Forgive my enthusiasm for the native fauna, but as a person who lives in a county that’s almost entirely built out, it’s pretty awesome that we get to see stuff like that…
Living in Monterey I see dolphins on occasion out in the bay next to the rec trail. Much more frequent are otters, seals, and sea lions. When the dolphins are in town, though, I usually park the bike and watch them for an hour. Especially when they’re in a playful mood.
Not something you can see from a car…
Amen to that…there’s LOTS of stuff people miss by commuting in a car — the sights and smells of the city, interesting critters, the interactions between cyclists and pedestrians. If only motorists knew what they were missing, they might give this “bike thingie” a try!
The smell of dead critters somewhere in the bush is one thing I could live without. I don’t think this beats dolphins, but I used to encounter camels, zebras, and peacocks on my old commute. There were a couple of exotic animal farms on my ride.
Man I’d love to see a pic of a real gator if someone see’s one during their commute, please send it in! info@bikecommuters.com
Wow, I would love to see some wildlife ALIVE here in Austin instead of all the wildlife road kill, but then again, maybe the only reason that dolphin is still alive is because its in the water and nowhere near a road full of clueless, careless, blind drivers that haunt the hospital crosswalks!