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Happy New Year!

(Yes, we’re late to the party but we hope you are all well into living your best life as a new year brings so many new opportunities. Gini and I are both recuperating well. However, our rehabbers are not ready to release us back into the wild just yet. Soon! In the meantime, please enjoy a few images from a trip we made on September 11, 2024.) (Click on images to enlarge,… Read More

Category: Birds, Fauna, Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: american alligator, carolina yellow-eyed grass, cloudless sulphur, eastern lubber grasshopper, golden silk spider, green swamp, little blue dragonlet, ornate bella moth, pine lily, purple false foxglove, purple loosestrife, red-femured spotted orbweaver, richloam wma, skyflower, sleepy orange, southern broken-dash, spurred butterfly pea, tall elephantsfoot, tufted titmouse, vanillaleaf, virginia buttonweed, withlacoochee state forest

Early One Summer Morning

(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) The turn-off is immediately after the bridge. I almost always miss it and have to do a U-turn. One problem is the highway is a shortcut for 18-wheelers heading for Interstate 75, typically from Interstate 4 to the south. The road saves them quite a bit of time as they don’t have to travel to where the two expressways intersect on the edge… Read More

Category: Birds, Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: amanda's pennant, bar-winged skimmer, eastern black swallowtail, golden-winged skimmer, green swamp, loblolly bay, peelbark st. john's wort, pine savanna, pitted stripeseed, roseate skimmer, roundpod st. john's-wort, showy milkwort, spotted orbweaver, tarflower, tufted titmouse

Resting “In The Grace of the World”*

(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) “Withlacoochee”. I like the sound. I really like the river. The name may have evolved from Native American for “crooked river”, an apt description. Florida’s Withlacoochee River bubbles up within the depths of the Green Swamp and winds its way north and west for 140 miles where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. It is a beautiful waterway. Near the place where… Read More

Category: Birds, Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: bighead rush, blue dasher, great crested flycatcher, great golden digger wasp, green swamp, mohr's thoroughwort, narrowleaf primrose-willow, needham's skimmer, northern cardinal, orange milkwort, palamedes swallowtail, pale meadowbeauty, richloam, rosy camphorweed, southern beeblossom, spurred butterfly pea, summer tanager, winged loosestrife, withlacoochee river, yellow milkwort, yellow-eyed grass

“… To Where It Bent In The Undergrowth …”*

A glimple of bright orange. “Is that a milkweed?” No. No it wasn’t. It was just after sunrise and we made a different choice today. This particular tract is a wildlife management area within the Withlacoochee River State Forest and consists of nearly 60,000 acres. We have developed a loose routine for exploring this vast area. There are three access points from the main road cleverly named “North”, “Central” and “South” Grade…. Read More

Category: Birds, Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: brown-winged striped sweat bee, bumble bee, clustered bushmint, fork-tailed bush katydid, great golden digger wasp, green swamp, pale meadowbeauty, persimmon, skyflower, southern beeblossom, twin-spot skipper, virginia saltmarsh mallow, winged loosestrife, yellow fringed orchid

Roadside Attractions

(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) You may be surprised to hear this, but Florida has “tourist attractions“. Beaches, picturesque old towns, prehistoric-looking person-eating hundred-foot-long alligators, cattle(!) drives, Seminole Indian reservations (complete with authentic casinos), fishing opportunities and the ultimate in planetary entertainment – an entire world built by a Mouse! Gini and I are both natives of The Sunshine State so we are quite familiar with these incredible… Read More

Category: Flora, Florida, Insects, Photography Tags: bandana of the everglades, bar-winged skimmer, blue dasher, bumble bee, fewflower milkweed, Florida, flower chafer, green anole, green swamp, hummingbird clearwing, little blue dragonlet, noyau vine, pearl crescent, purple thistle, showy milkwort, trumpet creeper, yellow fly

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