As usual, we have visited the favorite birding areas. This lovely Great Blue Heron strikes a classic pose for us.
Later, we took a walk in the Enchanted Forest. Not a lot of bird life but it does look like an enchanted forest! It's a cool walk on a hot day.
Daughter Heather came down to visit for a few days and enjoy the Florida winter weather. As soon as we picked her up from the airport, we headed for the Orlando Wetlands to do some birding. This beautiful male anhinga is drying his wings.
He has a wee little buddy. We still gave the little buddy a wide berth! It might have a big bad mom hanging around.
This 4 foot tall sandhill crane had absolutely no fear of us. He strutted back and forth across the road, just feet from us.
"I'm so lovely...."
The woodstork is feeding. He digs and scrapes his feet in the water, scaring up little frogs, etc. Then he snaps them up.
Heather's first full day was spent at the Kennedy Space Ctr. A walk under the rocket boosters takes you into the Atlantis building.
The Atlantis space shuttle hangs in the building.
Heather takes the controls!
A nice bus ride takes you to the Apollo building. Here is the Saturn 5 with the Apollo capsule on top.
I got to touch a moon rock (along with millions of other people)!
We also spent most of the next day at the Blue Springs State Park. This park is home of a deep natural spring that brings warm water into the St. John's River. Manatees spend cold days here, basking in the warm water. Unfortunately, only one was around when we were there, but we did take a boat ride and saw lots of other wildlife even though it was dreary, gray, and chilly.
Birds, of course. Limpin are wading birds that are aptly named for their, well, limp as they walk! They also are the voice of Cheeta the monkey in the original Tarzan movies. Their wailing call sounds exactly like a monkey scream. The movies were filmed in FL and the birds were used for the monkey calls.
This black crown night heron was fishing from a low hanging branch.
Ibis were everywhere! I call these the ibis trees.
And the frequent sneaky gaters. Can you see two yellow rimmed black eyes eyeing you?
A day at Merritt Island gave us a real treat - a seldom seen Reddish Egret. I am SO excited to see them! This heron isn't the quiet, stealthy hunter like the Great Blue and others. It dances, races, and lurches about, chasing it's prey. It also spreads its wings to attract fish to the shade they create.
The pictures aren't as good as I would like - this is one fast bird.
Roseate Spoonbills were clustered there, feeding. We didn't get any good pictures of them on the ground, but Heather got this beautiful shot of them in flight.
Last, manatees. Rocks in the river? Nope, manatee backs as they bask in the sun, warming their bodies through their backs.
A few days ago Luke and I went back to do a little more birding while we're still here. we saw these...
A white ibis
A limpkin. Notice how camouflaged his legs are in the brown grasses!
A juvenile Little Blue Heron, his feathers still white, but he already has the trademark two tone bill.
Luke caught this amazing picture of a Great Blue Heron struggling with a water snake! The heron won, but Luke's last blurry picture of the event show that the snake has the last 10 inches or so of it's body wrapped around the birds bill, trying it's best to avoid being completely swallowed.
Back at the campground, we found this fuzzy little guy, happy with his stolen treat.
Only about a week left for us here in FL. We'll be heading back to VA, ready for the glorious spring. We will sure miss our friends here, but it will be good to see family and friends at home.
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