Fall Foliage and Fauna in Florida

Sparky has been bike riding in Bradenton lately....It's nice to go on the Legacy Trail, Sparky starts on the rails to trails route from McIntosh Road trailhead in Sarasota, to the trailhead in Venice, about 10 miles one way, but that's a straight shot, semi shaded, and you don't see much wildlife...There's a payoff near the end when you start getting near the water near Venice, but it's still a straight shot through the palms, dry areas and past Oscar Scherer State Park until you get closer to the water at Venice.

So Sparky decided to venture out into the neighborhoods...What a treat! She bike 12 miles one day and ten miles the next day through neighborhood after neighborhood in the Tara area of Bradenton--There is Tara Preserve and many many other subdivisions on golf courses along the way with lots of water in the ponds and lots of birds…And gators…This one was sunning himself on top of a water fountain jet. Another couple came riding by, they were from Scotland. Sparky had a wonderful conversation with them, thoroughly enjoying their accent while we discussed how fun it would be to see the water fountain turn on with the gator on top of it!

The ride is beautiful...It's shady, and it's a lot prettier than the Legacy Trail...And, you can ride on wide sidewalks instead of the street.

On another ride on another day, Sparky spotted a baby gator at the side of a neighborhood pond.....

A snowy egret with its black legs and the distinctive yellow feet….They use to kill these birds for their plumage to use for hats back in the early part of the century….

This guy got a little annoyed as Sparky crept a little closer for another photo…..You can certainly understand some of these expressions we've gathered from birds…"ruffle somebody's feathers"….

Some beautiful ornamental grasses with rose pink plumes....They line the parkway winding throughout the home subdivisions...

Some royal palms....They are so majestic!

The seed pods on these things are HUGE!

Sparky loves Bismarck palms....They are silvery and spikey....Kinda like Sparky's hair... :-)

A BUNCH of turtles.....They were clear across the bank, many yards away, and they still skeddaddled once they saw Sparky ride by on the bike. But she still caught them before they all submerged..."DIVE, DIVE, DIVE!"

We have fall foliage here in Florida, too...sniff, sniff.  (Sparky is missing the fall foliage north of here, explains E.)...Crotons are turning orangish...

Here's some red….Sparky thinks these are hibiscus hiding their blooms at the moment because it's a cool morning.

And whatever the name of this tropical plant is, it's GORGEOUS right now....It's always pink, but now it's DEEP pink....

Plenty of plants and trees are in full bloom...Wonder when they "rest"?

The bark on Florida trees is very interesting! This one is a tree philodendron like the kind that used to grow in a pot in our sunroom of Sparky's childhood home many a moon ago. The tree's branches have been trimmed leaving an interesting pattern...It's definitely a TREE and leaves are still sprouting!

Love the herons..…You can tell this is a tri colored heron because of his white underbelly.

Here's another heron, a little blue heron, spotted in another marsh along today's ride…..

It was a wonderful bike ride today. It's a wonderful ride EVERY day! The temperatures are so nice now! Right around eighty today, and sixties at night for this week. It doesn't start to get hot now until afternoon and even then, it's very tolerable, very low humidity...Yay! says Sparky!

See you later...On the bike trail, maybe on the water in Sparky's kayak soon!

It's a PUMPKIN FESTIVAL!

Oh, boy! Sparky likes nothing better than a festival, ANY kind of festival! It's eatin' time! It's sample the local junky fair/festival cuisine time! Except Sparky had some outstanding chicken tacos from a stand that were the best she's ever had. Can't remember the name of it, but boy, were they good. Sparky ate TWO! The guy at the stand said they don't sell much Mexican food at their restaurant in town, but they know how to cook it. Yep, they sure do! Cole slaw, marinated chicken, spicy ranch chipotle sauce, mango...yum!

It's Hunsader's 2013 Pumpkin Festival in Bradenton! Three weekends in October and this was the last weekend for us to go, so we did. Eight dollars a piece to get in, five dollars for parking...It was terrific!

There were monster trucks...

Sparky had never seen what they did...Basically, they ran around and jumped over dirt piles like this one...Kinda cool, but not too thrilling for Sparky...

There were all the usual food stands---pizza, corn dogs, gourmet sandwiches, steak sandwiches, homemade ice cream, elephant ears slopped with some kind of pie filling on top of them.....

There were tons of craft booths, like over 100...Sparky went up and down the aisles checking each and every one of them out...Eldo was VERY patient while Sparky did that. He people watched....

Whittlin' the time away....

There was a farmer's market with all kinds of cool produce....like these squash..Never heard of 'em...

Beautiful peppers.....

There were some weird plants there...This is a tacca chantrieri....Hunh? It was ugly!

There was a butterfly house that cost 2.00 to get in. It was a donation for something, Sparky can't remember. There was an animal rehabilitation booth with cool owls...and a Bengal tiger needing donations for animal welfare and rescue of big cats and other animals...There was a chainsaw sculptor somewhere, but we missed him. How about a corn maze? It wasn't very high, it's tough growing corn in Florida. They should come to Indiana to see a REAL corn maze. We got lost in one a couple of years ago.  How about a rock climbing wall, live entertainment and more live shows? This was SOME festival!

There was a motocross (?) type of show. These guys were cool! and CUH-RAAA-ZY!

The dude is upside down!

And these guys were CUTE! No, not the motorcycle guys, couldn't tell with their helmets on...THESE little guys....They were eating turkey drumsticks as big as their heads! And they had cute little yellow sunglasses which they aren't wearing at the moment. They were watching a funny, entertaining show by the bluegrass band, the Sweeny Family. Corny jokes, but great banjo, fiddle, and guitar playing....

There were lots of photo opps in the pumpkin tents for having family photos taken. This little girl wasn't having any of it!

They had a pumpkin cannon, for heaven's sake....Yep! Shot pumpkins outta this thing that went for several football fields...

They shot it off several times, but Sparky missed every time....Got just the whoosh!

Oh, and there were LOTS and LOTS of scarecrows displays....

It was a picture perfect day....High right around 80.....A wonderful day for a festival.....We really enjoyed ourselves at our first time at Hunsader Farms. If you are interested, check out the website, there is a lot more to Hunsader Farms than just the pumpkin festival!

Bye for now……

Happy Halloween!

Off to see lots of little kids today….a parade in Venice where TONS of kids participated in a short parade walk and then trick or treated on Main Street in Venice…Here's Sparky' favorite costume from the parade, "Little Big Bird"…and her mama was dressed as Mama Chick…

Then we hurried over to St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota….There was supposed to be a "Thriller" dance put on by Sarasota High School…we didn't know when it started so we waited and waited and waited…In the meantime, we checked out the costumes all the way around…kids AND grownups…
This little guy was dressed like a blues brother and his twin, the same way. The twin made a getaway before Sparky could capture the two of them together. Of course, the sunglasses wouldn't stay on no matter what, the little guy kept taking them off, but he was still adorable!

The merchants on the circle got into the act….The kids trick and treated the stores on the circle….

This little gal was walking along with her mom, grabbing her throat and gasping like she was dying…

She was a natural at acting…her mom said she had no idea what she was pretending to be….But she was fine….

The Greek style statues on the circle were all decked out in their Halloween finery….

This one has a somewhat bemused expression, like, "Well, if you insist, I suppose I must wear it."

After waiting about two hours, we learned that the Thriller dance was not for another hour and a half, so we decided to leave, we'll return next year, IN COSTUME…(Oh, geez…I can see it now…she wants me to be Thing 2 with her Thing 1, sighs E.) We're going in COSTUME next year and make our presence known! laughs Sparky…(She gets more gutsy every year, E. sighs again. At least maybe I'll have a mask so nobody will know me.) Heck, nobody knows us now!

Lots of Halloween spirit in this town tonight…It was FUN! No trick or treaters in our neighborhood, it's kind of an old neighborhood, so that's why we headed out. Hope you had fun in YOUR neighborhood! See you later…...

Bird Brained and Duck Dynasty

Sparky is definitely getting more bird brained in her golden years. Forgetting stuff right and left, losing keys and wallet on a regular basis (in the house usually), difficulty remembering occasions in the past year that she SHOULD remember, enough that she consults Alzheimer's checklists on a regular basis, lol. So far, fairly normal aging of the brain, she surmises. Eldy is not alarmed yet, older sis is not alarmed, and friends have not broached the subject yet, so guess Sparky is still on track for navigating her way through life each day. Heck, she can still navigate to Michael's and Hobby Lobby without help (although she DOES have instructions on how to get to Hobby Lobby in her phone in case she forgets), so things are ok....

Speaking of being a bird brain, Sparky has birds on the brain at the moment. She is enjoying Florida birds more and more, and focused on taking photos of them. Today we spotted a FLOCK of about 20 wood storks, behind a shopping plaza in a lagoon area.  WOW! TWENTY woodstorks...they've been scarce lately...and scarce in general, because they are an endangered species. They must be making a comeback because the National Fish and Wildlife agency is thinking about reclassifying them as "threatened", a step down from being endangered...Sparky ran home to get her camera, hopped on her bike and boogied back to the back of the shopping center, where there's a little marsh ecosystem tucked behind the center. It attracts lots of birds, and today, it was the wood stork convention!

Wood storks used to be called a wood ibis...They have similarly curved bills like the little white ibis that are all over the place here in Florida.The wood storks look like turkeys or vultures a little bit. Their heads are blackish and bald like the vulture's. They have a BIG wingspan with big black feathers that you can see when they fly. The wingspan is anywhere from 5-6 feet across!

You can see the relationship between man's flight inventions and the streamlined birds, can't you? What aerodynamics!

Sparky took lots of shots, and had to stay a fair distance away because the birds were wary....

"Come any closer and I'll bite!"

Sparky just thinks these are really cool birds....Here's one in the grass....

And a couple mirroring each other....

A pair in the sun...

"Maybe she won't notice me if I hide behind Agnes."

There were a pair of cool ducks there...These are black bellied whistler ducks, a biologist friend says...Cool! Never heard of those!

Saw these same species of duck in a little pond on the Legacy bike trail a few days later...A mom and dad pair with four little ones who were popping up and down like little bobber corks for a good twenty minutes practicing their diving skills. Sarasota's own duck dynasty!  Each time one little duckling went down, the other three went immediately in succession right after each other--PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! The water churned a little bit, then POP! POP! POP! up they came, one right after the other. It was fun to watch!

Duck diving....

A wonderful part of a morning spent watching and photographing nature right across the street, well right across highway 70 from us.

                                                                           The end.....  :-)