I wanted to send special greetings for a Happy New Year to everyone from my family here at Pelican Perch...
If you haven't already started exploring your neighborhood and nature around you, start the new year out right - GO OUTSIDE AND EXPLORE!!!
What a great story on the front page of the St. Augustine Record today! It's all about 11-year old Keaton Bicknell who wants to become the youngest screenwriter in the world. And he's starting off by writing a screenplay based on my book, "Pelican Pete: A Bird Is Born."
Isn't that the coolest thing you ever heard? There's a whole long story all about it in the paper and you can see it for yourself at this page on-line or, if you're in the St. Augustine area, you can pick up a copy of the newspaper.
There are a couple of neat pictures in the newspaper as well including one of Hugh Keiser with Keaton. Keaton made a special trip to the Florida Heritage Book Festival a couple of months ago so that he could meet Hugh and Fran. Keaton loves the Pelican Pete books and wants to not only write a screenplay but he is getting help from some very special friends and family to actually turn his screenplay into a film.
Keaton's father, Stuart Bicknell has been working in the film business for years. He's a gaffer. That's a person who does electrical and lighting work for movies.
Another person working to make this happen was the lead animator for Walt Disney's feature film, "Lilo & Stitch" and his name is Dominic Carola. And there is even a production company from Orlando involved, "Best Friend Films." The co-owner, Kevin Lang, has tons of experience making movies so this should be really good.
There is even going to be a casting call at the Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine on Dec. 20th. Just like Hollywood!!
Keaton is a boy with special needs. He was diagnosed with autism when he was only 2. (There's a lot more information in the newspaper article about autism.) But Keaton hasn't let that stop him. He has a dream and he's going for it!
Keaton and his sister Samantha spent some time this summer at a film camp where he learned more about making movies. It was sponsored by the HEAL Foundation (Healing Every Autistic Life). The director of the camp is John Travolta's brother, Joey Travolta. You can read more about it at the link above.
If you have any questions about the book or the film, drop me a note. Tell me about your dreams too. My dream for this year is to explore new habitats and tell you about them. That, and being a movie star! Send your notes to: Pete's Mail Bag
I'll be back real soon to show you a neat picture of a centipede. Do you know what that is?
Keep on discovering and exploring the outdoors!
I mentioned in another post that Pelican Perch is located in Crescent Beach, Florida which is just a short distance from St. Augustine so I wanted to include a picture that Hugh Keiser drew of scenes from St. Augustine.
Hugh does all the illustrations in my books and he is a really good artist, don't you think?
St. Augustine is very old. In fact, it’s our nation’s oldest city. I explored St. Augustine, and learned about it in one of my books, First Discoveries. I visited the lighthouse, and heard about the Bridge of Lions. That was scary because I thought there would be real lions! I learned that we can all be good stewards of the land and when homes, schools, and offices are being built,
we can save places for wildlife like me and my pals. You can learn more about First Discoveries here, and you can learn more about St. Augustine here.
I'll be back soon. Until then, keep exploring!
You’ve probably noticed that I changed the look of my blog. I was having trouble organizing my posts and getting your comments, so I looked around at other blogs and decided this is it. What do you think? Should I continue with this or keep looking?
Drop me
a note at Pelican Perch or by clicking on the “comments” button below
and tell me
what you think and what you want to see in my blog. Sammy & Bethaney wrote in and said
they would like to see some nature activities. I told them about a fun NATURE
COLLAGE that you can make using my outline.
You can have fun making one too. Check out my "Arts & Craft" page to see how it is done.
I'll be back soon with new activities for you.
In the meantime, don't forget, keep exploring and go outside.
Fran got an email from Tom Patrick, of the Windstar Wildlife Institute. He wanted her to know that he posted a new feature on his blog. It's about my book series and entitled, "Kids Will Love the Pelican Pete Books." He even included a picture of one of the books. (Here's a link to a page on my website that shows all my books.) I was happy to see that. If you want to see it as well, you can click on this link to the Windstar Blog. You can also check out his main site Windstar Wildlife Institute. He has some great information about birds, animals, habitats and native plants. He also helps people to become master naturalists and to turn their yards into wildlife habitats. That way, more animals will live there and visit them.
It's so much fun to see who's visiting.
I'll be back soon with another visitor to Pelican Perch that I want to tell you about.
Keep enjoying the outdoors!
Hi, I’m back again.
I want to tell you about another visitor that came to Pelican Perch recently and this one is kind of rare for this part of the country. He is a blue land crab (Cardisoma guanhumi) and he actually wandered into the hall downstairs in Fran and Hugh’s house. You can imagine what Tara thought when she walked in and saw this quite colorful little crab. Tara, by the way, is one of the Pelican Pete team members who I will be introducing you to over the next couple of months. (You can see pictures of some of our team here.)
“Mr. Crabby” was about 4″ wide across his back and looked a lot like the familiar blue crab that usually inhabits our waters. But unlike the usual local variety of crab, he scrambled towards the rocks instead of heading for the river. (Just so you know, Pelican Perch is located on an island and we have the ocean on one side of us and the Matanzas River on the other side.)
Fran wanted to find out more about him and discovered that he is a “Land Crab”–Florida’s largest.
The farthest north they normally live is about 150 south of us by Indian River in Vero Beach. This is actually the 2nd Blue Crab that’s come our way lately. A couple of months ago, another one tapped on the glass at the studio door. “Mr. Crabby” was quite beautiful but “watch out” for those pincers.
I guess there must be something appealing about Pelican Perch! I know I like it a lot. I’ll be bringing you more news and discoveries as the weeks go by. Until then, go on outside and see what you find in your neighborhoods.
Keep exploring!
Hi Everyone,
It’s been awhile since we’ve posted anything here so I thought it was time for me to get on the road.I’m going to fly around the area, visit some interesting people and places (and flora and fauna, as well) and tell you all about who and what I see and meet.In the meantime though, we’ve had some unique visitors right here at Pelican Perch, my special place. It is the name that Fran and Hugh gave to their home and office here at Crescent Beach.They named it after me, isn’t that great? I’ll tell you more about Fran and Hugh as I go along in the weeks and months ahead. For now, the first visitor I want
to tell you about is a Saddleback Caterpillar.
Actually, there are two of them living on a house palm in one of the spare bedrooms in Fran and Hugh’s house. I’ve never seen anything like this. You can see why they are called Saddleback Caterpillars – it looks like they are wearing a saddle on a bright lime-green blanket with a white border.It’s quite beautiful, don’t you think?" Fran explained that they are about to pupate, so she’s been letting them stay in her house because it’s too cold for them to survive outdoors. They emerge from their chrysalis as a medium sized brown moth. Saddlebacks are one of three species of stinging caterpillars in our area. Believe me, you don’t want to brush your hand against one!
See you soon with more “friends” to tell you about.
Dancing Detective
Doing research on eastern woodrats (Neotoma floridana) for the Pelican Pete column has really opened my eyes to the little rodents that I only seemed to know as pests. First off, rats that are native to Florida are not pests for the most part, and they are pretty cute too!
Woodrats are very shy creatures that like to stay far away from humans. These rats can only be found in and around forest habitats.
Interestingly, woodrats make amazing waterproof nests that make it hard for prey like owls and other animals to get to them. These nests also contain all sorts of things that the rats have collected. They will have old shotgun shells, bones, cloth or anything else they can get their little paws on, hence they are also known as pack rats. Also, the rats have a separate area outside of their nests to use as a bathroom. It’s nice to know that they like to keep a clean house!
There is a subspecies of the eastern woodrat that only lives on Key Largo called the Key Largo woodrat (Neotoma floridana smalli). This rat lives in the northern part of the Florida keys and there are not many left. The sad thing about these rats is that they are endangered. Luckily, the rats have friends in high places and a distant cousin named Mickey.
Walt Disney World and scientists have set up an exhibit in Orlando to show the public who these little creatures are and try to save the population from disappearing due to land development and pythons (yes, pythons!). I wish the scientists the best of luck and hope they can come up with some sort of solution to this problem.
It’s interesting doing research for animals that people aren’t
concerned with or don’t know a lot about because they aren’t the cute
and cuddly ones. It’s a lot harder to assure protection for them and
that’s why it’s so important for people to learn about them. Every
animal holds an important place in the ecosystem.
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Amanda Johnson is a journalism intern and research team member at Sagaponack Books—publisher of the Pelican Pete children’s picture book series and Go Outside! column—written by Frances Keiser and illustrated by Hugh Keiser. The nature books and column are filled with fun facts about plants and animals and outdoor activities designed to connect children with nature.
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