BASILICA SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE ON THE RUN

YEAR- END RUN - A-THON BLENDS FUN, FITNESS AND SNOW CONES

Ah, to have the energy of a 9-year-old, or even a 13-year-old for that matter.

More than 200 students — of all ages — from the Basilica School of St. Mary Star of the Sea stretched their legs after school on April 26, preparing for the year-end Run-aThon.

What started as a social distancing, outdoor activity during the height of COVID turned into a schoolwide fitness and fun event each Wednesday after school that culminated with the Run-a-Thon.

“The Running Club was an idea I had during COVID, because out here in the schoolyard was the only place the kids could take their masks off while still social distancing,” said physical education teacher JJ Noah. “It was initially only for the middle-school grades, but then we opened it up to everyone. We had 131 kids sign up for the weekly Running Club, but we have more than 200 students out here today for the Run-a-Thon — mainly because there’s snow cones awaiting them at the end today.”

John O’Neill and the Southernmost Runners Club added to the excitement of the final event by providing official numbered bibs for each runner, while clocking their times, splits and laps with an official race timer and finish line.

Ten laps around the schoolyard equals one mile, Noah said. Students collect a colored rubber band to wear around their wrist for each lap completed so they know how far they ran.

“God only knows how many rubber bands I went through this year,” Noah said, laughing. “These kids run until they can’t run any more. They love it. Some of them are really, really good — and some are just here today for the snow cones.”

... is a photographer, writer, and semi-professional birdwatcher. He has lived in Key West for more than 25 years and may no longer be employable in the real world. He is also executive director of the Florida Keys Audubon Society.

And some days you find yourself, a middle-aged man with a ponytail, binoculars and a longlensed camera, hanging out just behind the bathroom of a beachfront state park, muttering the phrase, “Oh, you sexy little beast,” over and over again, and taking photo after photo. But it’s okay, it wasn’t too weird. Because it had rained the night before.

Spring migration in the Florida Keys is kind of an amazing thing. Over the course of a few weeks, millions of songbirds will fly through our airspace, principally at night. Most of them will have just completed a 90-mile water crossing, which is literally life and death for them. (Songbirds can’t swim.)

If the winds are right – or wrong, depending on how you look at it – some of those birds will have flown from as far as the Yucatan, a minimum of 400 miles across the Gulf of Mexico, blown off course by westerly breezes, which probably means they flew even farther.

There is a great, newish (at least to me) website called BirdCast.info which tries to predict how many birds will fly over a given part of the United States every night. It also uses local weather radar units to estimate how many birds actually do migrate. It’s kind of an amazing side use of the technology. (I’m not going to explain the science behind it here, because I bailed on engineering school and became an English major, but also because there is an excellent section called “A primer for using weather surveillance radar to study bird migration” on the BirdCast website.)

Last Thursday night, April 27, 582,500 birds were estimated to have migrated over Monroe County. Friday night: 140,700. Saturday night: 210,500.

While the Keys may represent the hardwon safety of the far shore for them, it doesn’t mean they will stop flying. If it’s early enough in the night or morning and the weather is favorable, they may just keep going. They can get piecemeal about their migration after they hit here.

On clear nights, it can be hard not to imagine them up there, guiding themselves by the stars or geographic landmarks or the magnetic forces of the planet (depending on the species), making their way through all that dark and open air.

If there’s some bad weather, though, the birds will often land once they get here to