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“Look at those red eyes!” No, Gini was not referring to me. A handsome (that immediately disqualifies yours truly) brown and white bird ran, stopped, cocked its head, ran a few more steps, stopped, grabbed a grasshopper, gulped it down and – wash, rinse, repeat. The behavior, plumage and beautiful dark red eyes belonged to the Killdeer, a member of the Plover family. Although a “shorebird”, it is more often encountered inland,… Read More
(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.) Yesterday we were sweeping up the place after our extravagant holiday reveling. There, among the bits of discarded shrimp, crumpled paper hats, Frank Sinatra album cover, underw— (oops, how’d that get there?) – we discovered some bits and bobs that escaped from the darkroom. We thought we would share. The pictures, not that other stuff. It was all the way back near the… Read More
Header: Osprey The weather forecast advised we would encounter heavy fog and once it lifted around mid-morning skies would be mostly cloudy. We decided to go anyway. Perhaps we could get some of those “mood” pictures of thick fog blanketing a lake. We rolled up to the bank of Picnic Lake, its calm surface reflecting the crystal clear blue sky as the sun rose above the cypress trees on the far shore…. Read More
Header Image: Cold Front Departing How can we be “The Sunshine State” if the sun is not shining? Winter. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin’! So there we were, standing on the dock of the lake, peering into grayness. At the end of the dock were two Brown Pelicans, peering into grayness. Soon, the fog will lift and they can go fishing and we can go birding. Soon. Any minute now…. Read More
Header Image: Ruby-crowned Kinglet Apparently, we did not exhaust ourselves enough during the Lakeland Christmas Bird Count so we volunteered to participate in the Green Swamp count. Twenty people. Over 500,000 acres of swamp. Challenging! Gini and I were assigned to the East Tract of the Green Swamp Wildlife Management Area which consisted of a mere 51,000 acres. The vast majority of this area is inaccessible. The Christmas census is designed to… Read More
Our Natural Places 