Brief update

We did a nice walk at Bok tower today. Saw tons of flowers, butterflies, snd a few birds. More pix to come, this is just the one I took on the cell phone:

I also made a supercool video of Heather doing a somersault:

Wings and Wildflowers!

Had a great unofficial DeeMotivation weekend at the Wings and Wildflowers festival. David and I led field trips, and I gave my Profoundly Unscientific Birding Identification talk. The weekend was a blast. If you didn't GOYB this weekend, here's what you missed. Make sure you click to enlarge the pictures, there's some neato stuff here!

We did a walk at Hickory Point park early Saturday morning. This is one of the first critters we encountered, a Spotted Orbweaver.

I'm drawing a blank on what this guy's name is, but he disguises himself as a leaf, and it works so well that I initially walked right by him until someone on the tour pointed him out.

This was a frog.. I think leopard frog? Again, pointed out by someone on the tour. He was very well hidden in a dark part of the swamp.

 HFC David discussing woodpeckers.

This is something neither David nor I had seen before - it was holes drilled by a yellow bellied sapsucker, which is't unusual, they normally make this pattern on trees; what was unusual is that the sapsucker did this on a vine. Weird and cool.

On Sunday, we had a really cool tour of promise ranch. These are some bobwhite quail that they raise on the ranch.

More bobwhite quail.

This was a black racer resting on some moss, spotted by another of our eagle-eyed  participants.

This is a gult fritilary. There were a TON of butterflies out here, one of the best places for butterflies I've been to.

This is a hairy.. ugh, can't remember the whole name. It's an invasive exotic, but pretty nonetheless.

This is a native - the aptly named Beautyberry.

 Wildflowers....

and wings, hence the name of the festival. This is a white peacock butterfly.

This was a really awesome field trip that defined the festival; lots of wings, and lots of wildflowers. The butterfly shown here is a zebra longwing.

If you didn't GOYB, don't despair, there are more festivals coming up in the near future. On October 26-28, we will be leading trips at the Treasure Coast Birding Festival, then in January, I will be teaching classes and leading field trips for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival.

And, in the very near future, you have the opportunity to GOYB Saturday, October 6 for a walk out at Bok Tower. Remember, you can look at pictures of cool things on the internet, or you can GOYB and experience them in real life. The choice is yours, but is it more fun to tell your friends that you saw a cool web site, or is it more fun to tell them you smelled wildflowers, you heard birds, you had a butterfly land on your shoulder? Make the right choice and join us on a field trip soon!

Event Update - SOSish Walk

Well, it's been a while since we have tried an SOS walk. We started off with the best of intentions, but only got about 5 miles due to being attacked by incredibly vicious deer flies. I am still itching like crazy, for some reason they go for the back of my knees, really annoying. The good news is that as always we saw cool stuff out at Goodwin. If you didn't GOYB and join us, here's what you missed! Click on the pictures to enlarge, there was some really neat stuff out there this week!

Started off the walk with one of my favorite birds, the shrike. He was actually eating a lizard or something but I didn't get the camera on him in time to capture that.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm always fascinated by decomposition. This was a really incredible skeleton of a snake. Compare and contrast with the one a few pictures down where the ants have not yet finished their work.

One of my favorite live snakes, the ring neck. This little guy was only about 3-4 inches long and super fast.

This is a really pretty ant. Known as both the velvet or cow-killer ant, it is lovely to look at, but I've been told their bite in incredibly unpleasant. Was not going to get close enough to find out.

This is another, more recently deceased snake. Make sure you click on this one to enlarge it, you can see the ants still working on it. I was kind of amazed at the methodicalness of how they were working from top down.

This little guy was out for stroll with us. If you look closely in the dirt you can see his foot prints. Heather felt bad for him as it was VERY hot so she shared her water with him on our way back.

This is a close up, he was really pretty.

Have no idea what kind of caterpillar this was but it was cool looking.

This was a neat looking butterfly. Not sure what species, but I love that big eye, he was so tiny but that crazy eye made him look totally evil.

This was another caterpillar that I had no idea of the species.

It was a hot and buggy walk, but as always was lots of fun, good conversation, and lots of cool stuff to see. We haven't been going out into the wilderness too much lately due to weather, but we have been walking pretty much every day after work, either at the park or on the river. Make sure you watch the schedule and come out with us. You can always look at pictures here, but you'll never REALLY experience the world from a laptop!

30 miles

So, with being sick and all, I got behind on my mileage goal. Heather and I decided to step it up (literally!) starting last week. Since last Saturday, I've covered over 30 miles. We've been walking in the evenings, and I've also been trying to up my mileage in the gym in the mornings. Be sure to keep an eye on the event listings and join us for the evening walks. We usually walk at Riverside in Vero, which in addition to being safe, well lit and not buggy, also has the advantage of being loopy which makes it easy to go as far as you want without having to worry about going back the way you came if you get tired. So, come out and join us us for at least a mile or two. Almost guaranteed that you will some cool stuff there including woodpecker families, ibises, and depending on how late we walk, owls and bats! Hope to see you there.

Event update

We resumed our weekend walks today. We did 4 miles today at riverside park. If you didn't GOTB and join us, you missed this very cool caterpillar:

I haven't forgotten my blog!

I haven't updated in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been getting out there. July was a busy month. I had surprise gall bladder surgery on the 13th, which wouldn't have been bad except I was supposed to be having adventures in MT, CA, and on up the west coast, then onwards to Alaska. Well, the adventure didn't happen, but I was able to salvage the Alaska part of it (thanks to the handiwork of Dr. Domkowski in Sebastian), so that was cool.

Unfortunately, between the weather and being sick for a while before the surgery, I haven't gotten in nearly as much walking as I had wanted, not sure if I will make the thousand mile mark this year. Kinda bummed about that, but I certainly still plan to try!

I didn't post my pictures from Alaska here as it wasn't an official DeeMotivation event, but if you are bored and want to see the pictures, you can view them on my personal blog at:


http://deederange.blogspot.com/search/label/Alaska

It truly was the ultimate GOYB event though, saw lots of birds, critters, got a lot of walking in, spent lots of quality time with the family.

But now, back to reality. I need to get more miles in, let me know if you want to join me in a walk on week days! I think I need to start walking in the mornings since the rain still moves in every afternoon when I usually plan to walk. Drop me an email or reply to this post if you want to join me!

Update: Walk on A1A

We did 3 very hot miles on a1a tonight. We found this weird tree. Don't know what the fruit is but it looks like pineapple.