More Nature...Are We Bored Yet?

Nope! Not only does Sparky see lots of nature USUALLY on her weekly or semi weekly bike rides around Bradenton, lots of other people see really cool stuff here in Florida...

On the news tonight, it was reported that people driving on highway 41, a.k.a. Tamiami Trail, saw two bald eagles duking it out along the roadside. It was a brutal fight over territory, and there was a winner. The injured loser, ended up getting the sympathy vote as LOTS of calls went in to the local wildlife rescue organization. He was captured and taken in to receive veterinary care and then released back into the wild. A happy ending!

Sparky would have LOVED to have seen and taken some photos. Unfortunately, she wasn't there, so we don't have any. BUT---another productive bike ride today...Very early in the morning, on the one day Sparky was not subbing this week. Throughout the neighborhood, there are many many ponds and wetlands. Sparky usually sees quite a few birds and today was no exception. Down at Jiggs Landing, the dragonflies were like sentinels, guarding the marsh grasses. There must have been fifty dragonflies all perched at the very tippy top of the marsh grass stems. This one looked like he was in line for take off at the local airfield!

Jiggs Landing is a beautiful spot to stop and rest for a bit....The clouds were reflected in the water this morning, with not a breeze anywhere in sight. It almost looked like snow on the ground, just for a second. (Sparky is still missing snow and cold, but when everybody up north starts complaining about the bitter cold and the ice storms hit, she will be happy she is in Florida. :-)

The limpkins were out and about today...Sparky apologizes for the dark photos...Not the best time of day for catching the best light on subjects. This was a limpkin and a tri colored heron (?) passing each other on the marsh....

Here's a slightly better photo of a limpkin...A little blurry because he was bogeying down the grass line, worried about Sparky and getting his breakfast at the same time.

Sparky's ride is not complete without spotting a gator....She read just the other day about a guy working in his backyard on a golf course here in Sarasota...He heard a commotion behind him, and a gator came charging full blast out of the pond and after him, getting a grab on his leg! He managed to get the gator off him, and made it to his house, where he then got himself treatment at the doctor for the leg bite. Yikes! Sparky still likes to get a little too close to gators to get photos, but she is becoming more cautious after hearing stories like this. ("One of these days....."---says a worried Eldo.....)

This gator is in the big pond right on our street, just a few doors down. He was out today as Sparky rode by--on the opposite side of the bank. He looks like a decent size, doesn't he? You are supposed to be able to figure out how long the gator is, by estimating how long his snout is to his eye ridge. Sparky wants to know how the heck can you get the approximate "guesstimate" snout measurement without getting a lot closer to the gator?! (DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!! warns E.)

And Sparky passed this one in another pond, keeping cool......She's glad she has a 30X zoom lens.

No spoonbills today, that is a VERY unusual sighting in the neighborhood to see one of those...Usually we have to head out to other parts of Sarasota and Bradenton to find them or we just get lucky like Sparky did last bike ride out. But, the cranes are back in force all over the place in pairs  as they usually are, and drilling the golf course for bugs. This one was beside a pond, busily preening as Sparky biked by...He didn't even blink an eye as she stopped to get a photo.....They certainly can contort themselves around to get at those itchy spots!

Another great day in the neighborhood! Sparky is looking forward to the fall temperatures coming....The rains are diminishing...We had over 10" last week, and Myakka River State Park flooded and closed most of the park. Sparky thinks soon she will want to get back over there to go gator watching....(What is it with my woman that she has this thing about alligators???? wonders Eldo.)  Don't know, dear...they are just very cool looking and so dinosaurish.....And ever since we saw a gator capture his prey and heard the bones crunching as he chomped down while we were watching at the bridge at Myakka River State Park, Sparky wants to go back again and again.....

Until next time.......See ya!

There's a Gator in the Yard! Or Neighborhood Nature Walk

Call the "Gator Boys", Eldy! There's a gator in the yard! The community yard, that is, in the pond that is in front of the condos a half a block down the street. Since our backyard is on the golf course, and we really don't have much of a backyard, just a few feet before we are on the Tara golf course, we probably won't ever see a gator in OUR backyard. But never say never...

Every day, Sparky looks for the neighborhood gator when driving to and from the Publix grocery, which is just five minutes from our house. She has seen this gator several times sunning himself on the grass right by the golf course. (Sparky has this thing about gators, can you tell? asks E.) If she sees the gator, she goes home, hops on the bike, rides like hell to get back as quickly as possible and brings the BIG camera, the one that has a 55-200 mm lens on it. She knows she can't get anywhere near the gator or he'll skedaddle into the water, lickety split.  How does she know that? Because just when she gets back to take his photo, some golfers usually come up on the course, and SWOOSH! He's gone.....And why doesn't she make it a habit to carry the big camera in the car to catch him when she sees him the first time? Because she doesn't want anybody breaking in the car and stealing the camera. There's always the iPhone, but this little gator is too shy to get a good photo with the iphone.

Sparky managed to sneak around the pond today and come up on him on the hill up high. As soon as he saw me come over the hill, SWOOSH! Gone! Boy, can they move FAST! He watched Sparky from the water....

The birds are used to Sparky...

"Here comes that woman agin. She's here almost every day."

"I know, don't look now, but she's here....Maybe she'll get the gator's photo instead of us."

"Too late..sigh...."

The gator is NOT used to people.  Shy and skittish....It's a young one, really not very big. He's more scared of people than people are of him. Floridians are used to gators. They won't bother you if you don't feed them or get too close! Hopefully, no one else has fed the gator you are looking at, or he might associate you with food and come to get some from you! Sparky had her bike to make a fast getaway just in case. Never mind that it was WAY over on the other side of the pond.

Speaking of gators, we went over to Myakka River State Park the other day to look for them on the bridge just after you come into the park. Sparky had first entertained the idea of hiking to the Deep Hole, which is a two mile hike in and a two mile hike back out, to see the hundreds of gators that gather there. After the ranger told her it was extremely muddy and that you would be walking in waist high water the last part of the way to the Deep Hole, Sparky, said, well, maybe another time. The ranger said try in the fall when things have dried up a bit. Guess it was because the Myakka River was almost at flood stage. No gators, no birds, no wildlife to be seen, just lots and lots of water. Some of the campgrounds were flooded, the land on each side of the main road was flooded right up to the edge of the road. We were going to do the Canopy Walk with the cool suspension bridge and the fantastic tower that overlooks the park, but decided we didn't have the right footgear to slosh through the mud and flood. Besides, there were probably LOTS of snakes slithering around in that muck and marsh. So we went to the bird boardwalk and observation deck, and again, no birds. The water was right up to the boardwalk...

We would NOT want to stay in the one campground we saw open with all that standing water around. Bet the mosquitoes are ferocious!

It was a beautiful, although very hot day in the 90's...We saw some beautiful purple marsh flowers, and OH! Almost forgot! We saw a BIG wild boar! Instead of catching the boar through the open car window with the long lens, Sparky decided to get out and get a little closer. The boar heard and saw her coming and ambled off into the deep mucky woods...Bye, bye, boar...

Gonna try getting some photos of dolphins in the next couple of days...No luck with baby turtles, no luck with gators in the park, no boars, no spoonbills lately, time to cycle back to the dolphins on Anna Maria Island. It's snook fishing season, maybe Sparky will have better luck catching a fish or dolphin photo...Bye for now......

Amazing Myakka River State Park

Sarasota, FL        High:  66       Low:   44

Sparky played five games of pickleball this morning...You play till one side scores 11 points, so it's not a long game, especially if you're a relative "newbie" like Sparky is, and you are the weakest link in the foursome in one of the games. Sparky played with three other players who were top notch. In this particular game, Sparky singlehandedly contributed to making every error that cost our side the game. The other team won 11 to ZIP. Sparky almost went home, then thought, nope, I'm gonna ride out the next game and see how I do with the next partner, and things went a whole lot better.  The level of play in the mornings during the week is a notch higher than the women's social pickleball. Sparky usually plays. Sparky gets intimidated easily by better players, and then gets mad at herself for missing shots she could have gotten. But, your game gets sharpened when you play with better players, so Sparky will keep showing up a couple mornings a week the remainder of our time here, and hopefully, will get better!

Mr. Gator, at Myakka River State Park, nice and close by

This afternoon, we went to Myakka River State Park, for our third time there...Myakka River State Park is a GREAT place to see alligators. We've seen them every time we've been. The first place you see them after entering the park and paying your 6.00 out of state fee, is at the bridge, where everybody stops to look to see if they are there. Today, there was only one...Every time we see one, we think of the Gator Boys TV show, on the Discovery Channel. They go around grabbing and capturing alligators out of people's yards and ponds and take them back to a preserve somewhere or some kind of alligator rescue place. They make it look so easy.....Back to Myakka.....

Very shortly after getting to the little bridge, he disappeared under water and decided to make himself scarce, only emerging once in awhile to see if we were still there.

It's fun to watch the interactions of the birds and the fishermen. We watched a great white heron try to land near a great blue heron, only to get chased off by him. The great blue herons were out in force today, waiting for the fishermen to catch something in hopes they might find something to eat, too!

We saw osprey soaring overhead, looking for fish....

Sparky loves to try and capture the beauty of their flight....She likes the way the sunlight was filtering through the tail feathers on this one.....

On our visit this time, we went deeper into the park...We stopped at the bird observation deck, and saw one solitary spoonbill WA-A-Y out in the distance, and not much else. There was a very stiff breeze, so the birds were laying low. Sparky saw this cute little girl all dressed and covered up like a little swami on our way out of the observation deck. She had her eye on Sparky and as we were walking back to our car, she waved, so of course, Sparky had to take her photo!  Nice to see a little one protected from the hot Florida sun.

On we went to where the "Gator Gal" tours are held along with the tram tours. The Gator Gal tour boat tours are 12.00 for adults..We didn't do that today, but understand it's a great tour.

We talked to one of the tour ladies and she told us to check out the fishing pier/deck and "dock", a place we hadn't seen in the park. It's right behind the campground store, down a narrow path. WOW! Was this a happenin' place for birds and gators! Lots of them!

Sparky asked the tour lady (Terri? I think her name was) if the vultures were still a problem at the park, and here's the story:

"The vultures have been a problem ever since the park opened. They congregate at night across the canal (where the Gator Gal tours start) and usually over a hundred vultures roost there during the night. In the early morning hours, they fly over to the parking lot, some land on the cars and dry their feathers. Then they get a little bored and start pecking at whatever is available, like people's windshield wipers, moldings, and rubber bumpers. If you are a fisherman and you are there early in the morning, then you go and leave your car for the day, that's the only time they really are a problem. One guy, after vultures ate his windshield wipers, made an owl out of styrofoam. Vultures don't like owls. He came back at the end of the day, and HAWKS had pecked his owl to smithereens. So he made ANOTHER owl out of styrofoam, put a wire cage around it and mounted it to the top of his truck. Problem solved. The vultures don't bother his car any more, and the hawks don't bother his owl. "

So, yes, in a manner of speaking, vultures CAN be a problem, but mainly in the very early morning hours. The signs are all over the park, because two people sued the state of Florida for vulture damage so out came the signs. We did see the vultures near the fishing pier....

At the fishing pier there is a cool educational exhibit where you can hear what sounds the alligators make and take a little quiz. Did you know that frogs are predators of baby alligators?

It was a beautiful day in the low seventies, with quite a breeze blowing...There were almost whitecaps on the very low level Myakka River. We really enjoyed seeing the gators and all the birds today...Hope to go again before we leave.....

Air plants or epiphytes at Myakka River State Park

Until next time.......