Six Mile Cypress Slough and More

After Bill and Gail let me sleep in Sunday morning, we headed out to Six Mile Cypress Slough which was still quite dry despite the pounding rain we had the previous night.  It is a beautiful walk even though we don't see too much sometimes.


I did find out what my pretty wildflower was.  It is called a Button Bush and there was quite a bit of it in the swampy areas.  Here a Viceroy butterfly landed on it which made for a pretty picture.

We also encountered a new butterfly (to me) called a White Peacock -- looks like someone bleached a Buckeye to me!


After we walked through the Slough and saw many of our usual birds like the Anhingas, we headed back to the Metro Parkway site that had the big mud flat to see what was there this morning.

There were a lot more of the Black Necked Stilts there today and I liked this one where you can see his "grasshopper" like legs.

Here were two of them together on the small island.

There were still a lot of the White Pelicans there but a large flock took off shortly after we arrived.  After flying in circles for a bit, they headed up and up and floated on the thermals.  They don't look so white from this angle!

Uh Oh, another flower to identify!!  This was growing by the Metro location.

And yet another wildflower to identify.  This was at another site we visited which was evidently an abandoned housing project.  Everything seemed to be set up but there were no houses.

We saw a duck on shoreby one of the development's created lakes that we couldn't identify as there was a large branch right behind it and just too far away.  She later got into the water and we identified her as a female Red Breasted Merganser, fairly common around here.  There bill is unmistakable -- something like a ski jump!

A rear view of the same duck showing the wing coloring.

We were also on a mission to find a Cattle Egret showing their summer coloring.  This was taken from quite a distance but shows the brownish patches as well as the bright yellow bill.  Hopefully we will get a better one later!

After a casual dining lunch, we headed to Bunche Beach to see if we could see any shorebirds.  Unfortunately, the tide was so high and the surf so rough, there was very little beach and therefore no shorebirds at all!!  Bill is here auditioning his new tshirt -- think I might do his own personal tie dye for him!!


I might add we also headed over to Ft. Myers Beach to see if there were any Frigate birds (we had seen quite a few yesterday but no pictures).  Of course we didn't see any today but did sneak back to see if there were any Scarlet Ibis in a secret pond -- there wasn't.


You should all be amazed that I have any blogs at all as we have been very busy every day I have been here!!  Of course Bill cooks these wonderful meals at the end of the day as well.


Tomorrow I have to get up at 6 as we are heading to Harns Marsh in Lehigh Acres north of here.  This is where the Snail Kites and the apple snails are found and I always enjoy our walks here.  Bill and Gail have discovered a new spot here although we won't be taking the car there!!!  They had to be towed out of the sand last week.  Oops!

Visit to Cape Coral -- Saturday Part II

This was the first of the Burrowing Owls up close!  After a hardy brunch, we headed over to Cape Coral to try to find Burrowing Owls and actually found two burrows with current residents.  We found a lot that didn't seem to have anybody living in them.   This was the little fellow who was sitting at the first place.  Down in Cape Coral, they are very protective of these birds who burrow in the ground.  There is usually fencing around the burrows and a perch for them to sit.  This guy was sitting on one of the fence posts.  They blend into their environment so well, it is hard to see them sometimes!  

They are quite small but definitely owllike!  This second picture shows the second Burrowing Owl just outside his burrow.

This was the owl from the second burrow and he is standing next to the burrow on the ground.  You can see how well they blend in.  They are 9 1/2 inches high.  Burrowing owls are found frequently out west but this is a different sub-species and does look a bit different than the other.  They were the subject of one of Carl Hiassem's very funny books called Hoot.  It is young adult fiction but I enjoyed it.

This was another very large treat today up in Cape Coral.  This is a Florida Scrub Jay which is an endangered species (as are many of the birds I have shown like the Wood Stork).  It is a beautiful bird and we were fortunate enough to have two practically pose for us.  This one is cracking open a peanut that he found.  Aren't the colors beautiful!

This is a full frontal that another of the jays gave us.

I had so many nice pictures of these birds, it was hard to choose just a couple.  Amazing they came out so well as it was very overcast today and so the light wasn't great but I was extremely pleased.


I should add I probably took 100 pictures of the owls and another 100 of the jays!!  


It was definitely a great bird day capped with a fine prime rib dinner prepared by our generous host Bill who spent the day driving us around.  I might add he even took us to our favorite quilt shop before we headed to Cape Coral!

One of the jays actually jumped up onto the car right next to us!  My sister has some funny pictures of her husband with the field glasses trying to spot the jays while one was literally over his head on the roof!

Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge - Saturday Pt 1

It was a very dreary day but we got an early start and went to Ding Darling, another of our favorite birding haunts down here.  It is located on Sanibel Island and always a nice drive.  Unlike December when you are apt to see all kinds of birds, we only saw a few species -- far fewer than our trip to the mud flat the other day.  However, in our favorite viewing spot, there was a flock of Roseate Spoonbills which are one of my very favorites!!  For once, my camera was aimed and shooting when the whole flock took off to some other place leaving the pond empty.

This is a Yellow Crowned Night Heron and a bird we frequently see down here although not posing as nicely as this!  Notice is dangly feather plumage!

We spotted this nice Little Blue Heron along the side of the road.  Gail was determined to try to spot a Mangrove Cuckoo, some of which have been spotted lately at the refuge and a very rare bird down here.  Needless to say, we failed on this venture.

This was a colorful little Ground Dove.  We have seen several of these in different places.

These are two of the Roseate Spoonbills -- probably the closest I have been to this bird ever.  Notice the yellow on the side of the one.  We didn't know what that meant.  I just love these  big pink birds.  The first time I ever saw them was in Corpus Christi on a sailboat ride with my old roommate Janice and her husband down near San Padre Wildlife Refuge.

Still another picture just as they were about to all take off!

They are up, up and away and very pink!!

A closeup of the Yellow Crowned Night Heron where you can see the crown and other facial markings.


After we left Ding Darling, we headed down to the Sanibel Lighthouse but the wind was blowing pretty ferociously and so we passed on a walk along the beach.  A lovely breakfast followed and then we headed to Cape Coral and a chance to see another of my favorites -- the Burrowing Owls.  But you will have to wait for the next blog to see whether we were successful or not.

A Visit to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Spring

Always a highlight of the trip to Ft. Myers is a visit to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and a walk along the 2 1/2 mile boardwalk.  This is an Audubon sanctuary and you always see something different and many times not a lot but the walk is beautiful.  This visit from the raccoons was definitely the most fun  part of the trip this year.  There were five or six raccoons dashing from the woods into literally a largish mud puddle. It is very dry this time of the year and could hardly be called a swamp so this was one of the few areas we saw any water at all.  These critters were amazing.  They would dig their paws down in the mud and consistently come up with fish about five or six inches long -- one right after another.  There was a little fussing as some among the raccoons felt they didn't have to work for their food!  It was hard to believe there were any fish here, much less the number we watched them catch!!  We thought the one in front was particularly handsome.

This is a Swallow Tailed Kite and a beautiful bird although a nasty aggressor according to the Audubon volunteer.  We saw evidence of this almost immediately in the next picture where he is attacking a Red Shouldered Hawk who was minding his own business.

Hard to disentangle the bodies here but there is an attack going on!!

One of the reasons for venturing down this time of year was to see the mating plumage of my favorite shorebirds as well as see babies whenever we could.  This was a baby Red Shouldered Hawk -- one of two that was in this nest.  Now I am sure one of my previous pictures was a Merlin -- some had thought it was a young Red Shouldered Hawk.

We saw more alligators than we had ever seen there before as well and they were BIG!

You need to really stare at this to see the piles of baby alligators!  Mama was off to the right but very nearby.  These were all quite small and hard to see.

This was a Little Blue Heron in the front with an immature Black Capped Night Heron in the rear.  The Little Blue is really BLUE this time of year with a bright blue beak!

A bigger picture of my favorite among the raccoons as he had more color than the others.

This was not one of the Orb Weavers I usually see as it had a perfectly round spider web.  There were two orange or red dots on its back.  Don't know what it is though but it didn't eat us like the "swamp flies" did -- something else you don't see in the winter months!!

This was the Red Shouldered Hawk before he was attacked!

Of course I always see new flowers and I just have not been able to identify this one at all but loved the picture!!

On the way home, we drove through Ft. Myers Beach and passed the Edgewater Inn where we have always stayed.  They certainly have dressed up the front -- no wonder the rates went up so much this year!!

An Embarrassment of Riches -- Lots of Birds!!

I arrived in Florida yesterday, changed my clothes and we were off to a nearby mud flat that was just covered with shore birds!!  It should be noted that this is not in any kind of reserve but just is a small pond off a major highway where Gail and Bill spotted some white birds one day driving by!


This is one of the wood storks coming in for a landing.  There were a lot of Wood Storks standing in the shallows.

There was a large population of the white pelicans swimming and walking around -- I think more than we have even seen at Ding Darling!

In this bunch are a little bit of everything including lots of Wood Storks, Great Egret, Ibis and Roseate Spoonbills.

This is a Black Necked Stilt -- look at those pink legs!  There were a number of these in the area -- a bird I hadn't seen before.

Not a good picture, but this is a picture showing the mating plummage of the Glossy Ibis -- very, very colorful and see the white around the face.  They are very different than the plummage I have seen before!

Here you can see two Roseate Spoonbills and a Great Egret.

An Anhinga drying out after taking a swim!

Bougainvillea is blooming all over the condo complex in all different colors of fuchsia, red and pink.

This is one of the air plants actually blooming which I haven't seen before.

April RAFA Meeting and the Spring Serendipity Quilt

I don't seem to tire doing these quilts as they are really quite challenging.  I start with one idea and inevitably the quilt takes over and then I just have to find fabric to keep up with it!  I wasn't going to use any  yellow or gold in this quilt when I started!  First I used a very pale yellow in the top and bottom middle blocks and didn't like them very well.  Then I moved to stronger colors -- the two middle blocks in the center row and the middle blocks on either side.  The top and bottom blocks on the outside row were made to pull all the colors together.  So much for no additional yellow!!  I did keep the pink out though.

This is the focus fabric used in the kalaidoscopic part of the quilt.  It is a nice spring print although on a black background.  I did like the blocks it made!

We had our RAFA meeting for April today with a very sparse group as many of our regulars were setting up for a quilt guild show.  Elaine bought this background fabric on her trip through the east earlier  -- what a wonderful use of a marbled fabric and don't you just love the tree.

Elaine also made this fabulous quilt inspired by the beach.  Just loved it -- may make one for myself and maybe Lisa will even let me hang it at the beach house!!

This was a very summery looking quilt done by the other Beth in our group.  She is relatively new to quilting and this was the first time she used someone else's  pattern rather than her own design but she loved the fabric!


I was glad I went to the meeting today as an old member was there that I hadn't seen in some time -- figured it was because I was away so much but it turns out that she moved to her house in Savannah in December and gave up the Rochester residence.  So I may see her some time in the future in her new environs.


I am heading down south tomorrow for a visit with Lisa in Charlotte and then to Ft. Myers next week to visit with my sister and her husband so busy times ahead.  I will eventually land at the beach house at some point as  yet to be determined!!  I will be doing some cat sitting during this time.  Should be arriving back here sometime in May depending upon Lisa's scheduled out of town time!