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We Gathered Rosebuds While In May*

(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) (Gini continues to take it easy and liked the hospital food so much she may schedule another visit soon. In the meantime, we shall force you to view never-before-seen images of past adventures. Thank you again from both our hearts for your well-wishes. It means a lot.) In the merry merry month of May, Gini and I were frolicking in the Green Swamp… Read More

Category: Birds, Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: buttonbush, carolina chickadee, citrine forktail, eastern black swallowtail, eastern carpenter bee, florida bellflower, four-petal st. john's-wort, green swamp, horace's duskywing, little yellow, mock bishop's weed, phaon crescent, pineland waterwillow, pitted stripeseed, roundpod st. john's-wort, showy milkwort, spurred butterfly pea, swamp rose, tufted titmouse, yellow milkwort

Among Flowers

(Click on image to enlarge, click again to zoom.) The calendar for this excursion was near the end of April. Florida’s heat and humidity will be here soon. In the meantime, the mild clear mornings are glorious. We turned off the county highway onto an old logging road as the eastern sky began to lighten. A coating of dust on the plants beside the dirt track testified to the recent dry conditions…. Read More

Category: Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: black-eyed susan, citrine forktail, florida bellflower, longleaf milkweed, peelbark st. john's wort, pinebarren aster, southern beeblossom, spurred butterfly pea, swamp rose, tievine

Spring Resurrected

(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) March was a busy month around here. Several family birthdays, annoying medical appointments, an anniversary road trip. During an overdue cleanup of the OurNaturalPlaces office complex, we discovered an old shoebox filled with dust and cobwebs which also contained images of one of the year’s first significant Spring swamp forays. We have tried to clean the pictures enough so you may enjoy what… Read More

Category: Birds, Fauna, Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: blackeyed susan, brown-headed nuthatch, citrine forktail, common blue violet, floating bladderwort, green swamp, lyreleaf sage, purple thistle, savanna iris, smallfruit beggarticks, white-tailed deer

Ridge Redux: Bugs

Our excursion to Lake Wales Ridge State Forest had been typical of past visits. We encountered old friends and were treated to surprises which nature has a way of placing in your path. The quiet of sunrise in the pine forest, the raucous wake-up calls of both Blue and Florida Scrub Jays, abundant floral arrangements just for our eyes, white-tailed deer skulking just inside the tree line, tracks of a Bobcat in… Read More

Category: Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: ant lion, band-winged dragonlet, ceraunus blue, citrine forktail, delaware skipper, eastern amberwing, gray hairstreak, lake wales ridge, little blue dragonlet, pine savannah, queen

Crooked River: The Beginning

Header Image: Pine Flatwoods It can be exhilarating to be prone in the damp grass early in the morning just after sunrise observing the waking moments of what is likely the smallest damselfly in the country. Rolling to the left provides a view of the nearby tree line just as a Red-shouldered Hawk lands atop an oak tree. Rolling on my back reveals a superbly clear morning of an impossibly blue sky…. Read More

Category: Fauna, Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: blue dasher, bluejacket, carolina wild petunia, citrine forktail, cloudless sulphur, coral bean, crooked river, green anole, green swamp, least skipper, lizard's tail, palamedes swallowtail, pearl crescent, peruvian primrosewillow, savanna iris, starrush whitetop, striped mud turtle, swamp rose, withlacoochee river

Our Natural Places

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