Six Mile Cypress Slough and Lover's Key State Park

We went for a nice late afternoon walk along the path at Six Mile Cypress Slough yesterday. At the very end of our trek, this very nice Red Shouldered Hawk posed for pictures.

I love all the old Cypress trees in this swampy walk.

This is the common cardinal but he was very bright and cheerful against the dark green of the swamp.

This is a Black Capped Night Heron and this is the first time I have seen one of these on this walk -- usually it is the Yellow Crowned.

Today we got up bright and early and headed to Lover's Key to walk the beach and see if we could find birds and shells. The birds have made themselves scarce all over because of the really cold weather. My sister had on five layers! The shells were pretty scarce also but we did manage to find a few. Wading through the water like we normally do was not in the cards today unless you like frozen feet.

These are a couple of ibis looking for breakfast.

This is probably an immature Little Blue Heron. Hard to tell them from the Snowy Egrets who they hang out with.

This is probably a Reddish Egret. They look a lot like the Little Blue Herons except they are much bigger.

This is a Gulf Fritillary -- a very common butterfly but he posed nicely today at Lover's Key.

This was a particularly nice Great Blue Heron which is definitely still one of my favorites despite some of their nasty habits of steeling goldfish from people's ponds!