After walking around Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, we made our way over to the trails, dodging orb weaver spiders and their net-sized webs.

When we got to a break in the path, we dropped our bags in the outdoor classroom pavilion that is nestled in the mangroves next to the inlet.

Looking up, one of my sons wandered toward the mangroves. He pulled on a stick, thinking it was falling off the tree, only to realize it was a root reaching down into the earth.

As he slowed down, taking a minute to understand these upside-down trees, he shouted:

“I saw a bug! It had a big claw!”

He paused, watching the exact leaf this mysterious bug had snuck under, as the rest of us walked over.

We crouched beside him, all scanning and waiting.

Suddenly, a little claw emerged before quickly disappearing again.

As we held our breath, frozen, waiting for this illusive clawed bug to reemerge, we began to hear a pitter-pattering.

That’s when we saw them.

Tiny crabs, each with one large claw.

And they were everywhere.

We took out our cameras and identified them.

Fiddler crabs.

More than we could count.

Now that we were listening, we could hear them everywhere.

We grabbed our Nahlo Travel Logs and tried to sketch them as best we could. We took macro pictures of them hiding among crunchy brown and orange leaves. We watched them dip in and out of their holes in the sand, purposefully moving in and out of their burrows.

We’ve been to Gumbo Limbo probably a dozen times at this point.

And yet, that day, it was new to us.