Unofficial Event Update: The Tampon Commercial Weekend

2 little boys are walking down the street and they find a $5.00 bill. They are trying to figure out what to do with it when one of the screams, "I know!" and he runs in to a pharmacy, and says to the woman behind the counter, "I want to buy a box of tampons!" The clerk looks at him and says, "Why on earth do you want those?" And the little boy says, "Well, on the commercial, it says if you buy them you can go hiking, and swimming and horseback riding and biking..."


But I digress...

This weekend, to celebrate my birthday and our 6th wedding anniversary, I went down to the everglades where David is working and we went kayaking, hiking, biking, and also did some birding by car.  We used David's camera for most of the kayaking pictures, will post those later. But here is the rest of the weekend. Click photos to embiggen:

We saw this little fella the day we went kayaking . Ok, technically, we saw him at Gatorama on the way home from kayaking, but it was the day that we went kayaking!

We went biking on the berm beside the canal on Lake Ockechobee. It was a really pretty area.

 We came across a very large dead cottonmouth. The thing that I thought was cool was that he was pretty recently killed, but the ants had already started cleaning him. If you enlarge the picture, you can actually see his bones. They look quite a bit like fish bones, which I thought was kind of neat.

 HFC David, when we stopped for water.

Yours truly. If you look very closely, on the telephone pole, there is a really pretty red bellied woodpecker. Or, you can just scroll to the next picture.

 The aforementioned red-bellied woodpecker.

 After the bike ride, David drove me around to show me the places he is working. One very cool spot was a rookery. The is a yellow-crowned night heron and her babies.

 This is a baby little blue egret. He is folding his wings in that weird way that adult great blues do. Neither David nor I have ever seen a baby bird do this before.

This is another family of yellow crowned night herons. The baby is hollering at the mom.

My favorite thing about the rookery was that the longer I looked, the more babies I saw. Enlarge this picture and try to count all the babies!

A little blue heron and and even littler little blue heron!

Another shot of a night heron with babies. It amazed me how well camouflaged they were.



Take a look at the schedule, our regularly scheduled long walks will resume this Wednesday, and we will be doing something on the weekend, haven't decided what yet, but am open to suggestions!

Event Update: Goodwin WMA

I did another dusk walk at Goodwin. I was by myself this time. Saw a lot of neat things. If you didn't GOYB, here's what you missed. Click photos to enlarge:

Can anyone tell me why his legs are white...

 ... and his are orange? Hint: It is most definitely NOT a method that I personally would use to cool off.

 I like the way the one on the right is giving the one on the left the evil eye, like he doesn't trust him...

I got mooned by at black necked stilt. It's cool though, it's one of my favorite birds and one that I don't see too often at Goodwin.

Funny, I usually don't mind walking by myself, but I do get a heightened sense of awareness that I am not alone sometimes...

 A cattle egret in flight. This is one of my favorite pix of a cowgret that I've ever taken.

 Another shot of the cowgret.

This is an artsy one of a great blue and a Roseate Spoonbil.






I only walked about a mile tonight, but it was a very productive mile! Just goes to prove that you don't have to be a triathelete, you just have to GOYB!

The Most Awesome Event Update EVER!

Today we had the most awesome event EVER! We kayaked down Turkey Creek. If you weren't OYB today, you missed a lot! Here are just a FEW of the pictures that Heather took (I wasn't feeling confident that I wouldn't drown my camera so Heather was kind enough to do the photography work for me today.) There are tons of other pictures as well, these are just the highlights. Click the photos to embiggen:

 Me and HFC David, attempting to kiss without capsizing our kayaks. That sounds way dirtier than it is.

 We had an awesome turnout today. In addition to Heather and HFC David, we were joined by Paul...

and Ibrahim...

 and Dawnell...

 and the lovely Kristen, our fearless tour guide!








This was about the coolest thing I have ever seen. A manatee actually came about 1/2 way out of the water to nom on some grass. Really amazing!

 David, looking good as always.

 There were a total of 9 canoes on the trip.

 Heather took all of the pictures today, I thought this one is amazing, definitely the picture of the day!

 An anhinga drying its wings.

 Me, David and Dawnell during our picnic lunch.

 A cute picture of Ibrahim.

 The kayaks, also taking a lunch break.

A soft-shelled turtle.

 Heather thought it was funny that my life jacket had an ad for Vodka on it.

 Me, looking like an adventurer.

 I think this will be the new DeeMotivation icon.

David, my little adventurer

The divine Ms. Heather. I finally got up the courage to take a few pictures, and I didn't even drop the camera!

 Our fearless tour guide, Kristen, taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

 This picture made me laugh, the turtle was goofing off with his legs sailing in the air. I think he was practicing his Superman moves.

 A cool shot of a manatee.  We saw quite a few today, and one even swam right under Dawnell's boat!

A scary alligator. I lie, he was actually very cute and not too big. But I'm glad he stayed on shore. As I explained to Dawnell, you don't have to outswim the alligator, you just have to outswim the other people in the water!

Today was an awesome trip. Thanks so much for everyone who came out and especially to Kristen from FLOC for making it such a safe and enjoyable trip. If you are looking for a great, fun thing to do on a weekend, be sure to check out her web site and business, located in Captain Hirams in Sebastian.

Event Update: McKee Botanical Gardens

We finally made it out to McKee Botanical Gardens on Easter Sunday. If you didn't GOYB, here's what you missed (click photo to embiggen):

 There wasn't a ton of stuff in bloom, but the water lilies were pretty.

 Another waterlily.

 They have been doing a Dr. Suess exhibit with sculptures throughout the park. They were very cool. Here is me and HFC David with the Cat in the Hat.

 Me, with the Grinch.

 Me and David with the Grinch. You can just barely make out Max's antler in front of me. One of the park volunteers too the picture for us.

I took this picture for my friend Karen. It reminded me a fateful camping trip to the white mountains, specifically the great turtle incident in Storyland.

 David does not like green eggs and ham.

I do not like, ah, who I am I kidding, I've been off sugar for 39 days, I'll eat ANYTHING at this point!

For those who couldn't join use, I hope to see you on the next outing!

Event Update: Pelican Island

Today was another great walk, this time it was 3.6 miles out at Pelican Island.  If you didn't choose to GOYB, here's what you missed (click photos to enlarge):

 Well, you missed lots of fun and interesting conversation, but I will admit you didn't miss much in the way of birds or critters today. Here are Heather and Ibrahim starting at... absolutely nothing... there wasn't even water out there today!

 Your fearless leader, also staring at... absolutely nothing!

 We did stumble across lots and lots of Galardia in full bloom. Very pretty.

 Heather took this neat artsy shot of the galardia.

This was the only interesting critter shot of the day. A momma ... something or other... goose? duckie? with it's babies.

As always, it was a great day out in the wilderness. And, even if we didn't see a ton of stuff today, we still saw more than everyone who stayed in today! Hope to see you out there next week!