A Secret the Everglades Keeps Until Sunrise

In the brief moment when darkness gives way to light, the Everglades reveals what few people ever see.

Before the sun came up, the Everglades belonged to sound and shadow.

I was already knee-deep in water, moving slowly, probing ahead with a stick—listening for the subtle shifts that meant something large had moved nearby. The air was heavy with the smell of wet earth and decay, thick enough to taste. Insects hovered close. Birds were just beginning to wake.

I was alone, as I often was, following GPS coordinates through dense vegetation, surveying for invasive species that didn’t belong here. My waders were cinched tight at the ankles with duct tape—a field fix many of us women in the field relied on back then. It helped keep suction from locking you in place, and if water rose too fast, you needed to be able to move. I carried a knife, always. In the Everglades, that wasn’t optional.

Then the sun broke the horizon.

For a split second, the light cut through the dense vegetation and blinded me, forcing me to stop. And when my eyes adjusted, the landscape shifted.

Wild orchids emerged from the shadows—butterfly orchids, ghost orchids—suspended in the trees, pale and luminous in the early light. They hadn’t appeared suddenly. They had been there all along, hidden until the darkness lifted.

I stood still, water pressing against my legs, birds now fully awake, wings moving through the air around me. In that narrow window between night and day, the Everglades revealed itself—quiet, deliberate, and breathtaking.

It was a moment I will never forget.