An Encounter with a Gator, the CLOSE Kind!

Sparky said she was going to tell you all about kayaking on the Braden River, so here goes....She's ready to go kayaking...

And because she's saving for a new kayak, she has to rent one. No better place to rent one than down at Jiggs Landing, which is a hop, skip, and a jump behind her subdivision. Jiggs Landing is a marvelous place, a former fishing camp that recently underwent renovations and got a family to run concessions. There are "throw back to the forties" fishing cabins, which are now getting AC to make them more comfortable. There's a new parking lot, a boat ramp, a nifty floatable kayak launch, a nice playground, and a beautiful boardwalk to view the wildlife from the reservoir, which leads out to the Braden River. Kayaks can be rented for 20.00 for four hours, a reasonable rate! They are short, though, only 10 footers, but that's a great size for just lazy day paddling along the river....The staff at Jiggs are very friendly, and keep a close eye on things.  One day Sparky went out with her brother when he came for a visit. We were going to paddle all the way to Linger Lodge, a cool old Florida tavern in an old RV campground with lots of taxidermy stuff, a big screened in porch and live entertainment. It's about a two and a half hour paddle. We stopped there, Charlie had a beer and Sparky had a root beer. As it was getting late in the day, Sparky's better half called Jiggs Landing rental shop and just said we might be a little delayed, since closing time was getting close. They are thinking, ok, drinking at Linger Lodge Tavern, we'd better check on them. We were almost all the way back, when here comes a pontoon boat coming up the river with a park staff member, looking for us. Guess they had some previous experience with drinkers along the river, but it wasn't us! We were fine..."You sure?" as he checked us out very carefully... "Yep! We're fine!"

Back to the paddle today....You never know what you are going to see....Sparky started out slowly up the river, (it's not much of a current), and she soon saw a flash of colors on a duck, it was a WOOD duck, one of the most beautiful ducks in duck world, in her opinion! Woo hoo! She loves these ducks! He was all by himself as far as she could tell.

On she went....There are beautiful plants along the river, sometimes Sparky will only see just one bloom of a certain kind....Sparky doesn't know the names of this one, it could just be a weed, but this one caught her eye....it was gorgeous!

A beautiful red cardinal.....

She saw a banana tree in someone's yard that lives along the river...Wonder if they taste good?

Some more beautiful river plants....

The reflections on the river were so pretty....

And get a load of this! Sparky was floating along and came up along side a tri-colored heron...she snapped the shot with her camera phone, and not till AFTER she got home and posted it did she notice the bird's foot clamped down on top of a turtle! Don't know if the bird was just resting, claiming the turtle for a later lunch, or if the turtle got away....Cool beans! (Doesn't Judy say that, of Travels with Emma fame?)

What else happened on this eventful kayak trip? (Uh, yeah, Sparky...remember your title? reminds E.)

Yep...Getting there....Sparky sees a gator...no big deal...Sparky sees at least one gator every time she goes on the Braden River. This one was about 100 yards in front of her boat. Sparky kept paddling. No worries, the gator will see her coming and slowly submerge to get out of the way before she gets close enough to take a good photo. He doesn't move... Sparky keeps paddling....He doesn't move...He is now directly in front of her kayak bow. Sparky gets out her phone and takes a quick photo. She is not sure what he might do, so she needed both hands on her paddle to be ready....But she's not worried. (Sparky is stubborn and is a little bit of a risk taker, explains Eldo.) Notice he said LITTLE bit of a risk taker. Sparky has seen and photographed LOTS of gators. They are NOT interested in a bright green hard shell kayak, 99.9% of the time. Sparky was NOT worried....He was not a huge gator. So she kept moving forward expecting him to submerge or swim away from her at any moment. He never did. Sparky went RIGHT OVER THE GATOR'S BACK and could feel the bumpy ridges under her seat as she went over him, (at least she would swear she could)..."OMG, I JUST RAN OVER AN ALLIGATOR!!!!!" That was a little bit unnerving to say the least! 

Nothing else can top THAT experience of the day! Only as she was floating by the shoreline (following it fairly closely after that unusual experience), she just casually glanced off to the right and saw another BIG gator sunning himself on a log, that one was less than ten yards from her.

It was a fabulous day on the Braden River today.....and exciting, too! The next time you see Sparky, she will be in Houston visiting her little grandson! Soon to follow that will be Sparky and Eldo heading to Alaska!   See you later!

Bike Rides are NOT Boring in Bradenton!

Hi, folks...Sparky's on vacation...NOT! Not really, just going to blog today in first person...Me, Jeannie Sparks, a.k.a. "Sparky." Well, time to post a collage or two of nature's beauty that I have seen in the last several months on my 12-15 mile bike rides a couple times a week in the residential areas of Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch, a beautiful master planned community adjacent to where we live.....These are some of my favorite photos..Got lots more...But thought it would be nice to collage a set, although you can't see all the details that way. The bee in the middle is having a "bath" in a magnolia blossom. He was just diving in and out and all around in the fallen pistols (?) stamens (?) or whatever that magnolia "stuff" is. Then, when he realized there was a great big HUMAN photographing him, he started doing a wild and crazy warning dance to another bee who had alighted on the same blossom, who didn't pay him much attention. Down on the bottom right, a young heron with an itch....

I have been really lucky in all the nature and wildlife sightings that have graced my bike rides. Most of the time I use my iPhone 6S for the closeup nature and flower shots, and for the longer distance sightings, I have used my little point and shoot Canon camera that has 30X zoom for quite some time now.  I'm not very happy with it because often the birds' feathers are washed out, but I'm sure that's the amateur in me, not knowing how to fix that...I know that time of day is very important, so I try to take photos early in the morning and near sunset in the evening, as those are prime times, but my photos still look overexposed many times.

I've tried experimenting with different settings on the point and shoot, but I can't seem to figure out how to get improved visibility of bird feathers with this type of camera. Years ago, I thought a Nikon SLR camera would be more to my liking, but it wasn't portable enough and I found that it was taking so much time to switch out lenses and get the right settings that I gave up. I'm not a very patient person on things like that. I needed something a lot more simpler to grab and go, so I'm back to the Canon SX500 IS that I use, and my iPhone 6S, which takes amazing landscape and amazing close up photos. Some day I will upgrade my point and shoot again, and hope for a little better quality of detail on my photos when using that kind of camera. But I am REALLY happy with the iPhone 6S. Twice now, my iPhone photos that I submitted to a local newspaper were chosen to be featured as the photo of the week. Here's my latest chosen photo, a bee on a bristlecone flower, taken with the iPhone 6S, and published in the Observer, our local weekly newspaper.

When you are retired, you can stop and look at the darnedest things that capture your interest, just because you can. Sometimes, it's the bees on the flowers that captivate me....

Sometimes, it's the patterns on water or leaves that interest me.....

At any and ALL times, it's roseate spoonbills! (Yep, can't tell you how many times Sparky has yelled, "STOP! There's a spoonbill! Stop the car!" laughs E.) Just today, I happened upon a flock of seven spoonbills at a local park here in Sarasota. I have not seen a flock of spoonbills in over a year, maybe two. Just one here or there, but today, there were SEVEN of them! They were in a ditch over at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, by UTC mall, having a feeding frenzy, not seeming to mind that people were walking by not too far from them. Usually, spoonbills are quite the elusive bird, and skittish around people. Not these....Here are three out of the seven....

Captured this spoonbill shot at a marsh that I ride by at least three times a week. It's on River Club road, in and around Lakewood Ranch, part of my 12-15 mile ride that I do about three times a week.
This is with my Canon point and shoot, 30X zoom...No doctoring at all of the photo...natural light, that's the bird's actual colors, everything just came together on this one.

I always see tricolored herons on my ride....

And a new batch of sandhill crane babies with their mom and dad....In case you missed them, they are at the bottom right of the photo....

The one day I was watching these little cuties late in the afternoon......

A small herd of deer passed directly to the right of me and crossed over the road to the other side...I have never seen a herd of deer, not even one or two deer in this residential area in the three years I've lived in Bradenton!

Saw this egret and spoonbill together in the same big marsh one day, that I pass by every time on my bike..It's a big marsh on River Club Road in Bradenton in Lakewood Ranch. Usually WONDERFUL sightings there, but not always...

A wonderful place to observe wildlife, Bradenton really has it all......You just have to keep your eyes open to see it and take your time....Until next time, when Sparky gets out on the Braden River to kayak!  See you later!