Have You Ever Noticed?....

That the great white egret (or great white heron, Sparky can't remember which) has a green banding around its eyes and the anhinga has a quite bright green ring around its eyes as well? The anhinga is a male in breeding plumage.....

The bark pattern on a tree philodendron? They look like eyes with eyelashes.....

How a wood stork sits?  On the "knee" joints! With the feet in "tippy toe" position!

How cormorants hang out with pelicans and possibly herd fish together? Sparky saw a flock of 85 white pelicans migrating through Lakewood Ranch the other day and a flock of at least 40 cormorants hanging with them. They seemed to be fishing together. It seemed the cormorants were diving towards the bottom, pushing the fish upwards, and they were both benefitting from the fish coming to the surface. Along the shores of the pond where the pelicans were nearby fishing, were 6 Great Blue herons, and they were NOT comfortable with the crowd of pelicans there. Sparky saw one Great Blue back away as the pelicans herded fish towards the shore. The birds on shore kept a watchful distance until the pelicans moved away.

Ever noticed.....why it's so difficult it is to sneak up on turtles? Sparky can do it in a kayak, but not while walking along a sidewalk...If she takes just one or two steps towards a group of sunning turtles on a pond bank at a distance of at LEAST 100 yards or more, PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! into the water they go....Can they feel the ground vibrations? (Sparky, you DO have heavy feet some times, explains E.) Can they really see that far? But look how close Sparky can get while in the kayak....

How many bees are on a bottlebrush tree when they are budding and blooming? HUNDREDS!

How often cranes' heads are in the upside down position as they clean their feathers?

What's under your feet in some places? Sarasota has some beautiful sidewalk tile mosaics....

How symmetrical nature is?

Just wondering.........  :-)

Never a Boring Bike Ride!

Off again on the bike, Sparky goes late in the day....Down I-70 along the sidewalk about three miles, turning right at River Club Blvd., which takes you all the way down and out into Lakewood Ranch, that beautiful residential community with all the wetlands, ponds and bird life....On the way through River Club subdivision, Sparky spots a spoonbill & company....

The spoonbill is wary, but stays put......

Looks like he's talking to the others, doesn't he?

"Hey, fellas....How's the eatin'?

On through more of the beautiful roadway and ponds through the subdivision and back out on the main boulevard.....Woodstorks! Lots of them.....They are still on the endangered list, but there are plenty of them here in the Sarasota/Bradenton area.....This one looks OLD! His grizzly head, grey feathers, but he looks wise....He's wise to Sparky, he starts walking away.....

Sparky stopped by a pond to see a heron and great white egret preening and fishing. They are such big, beautiful birds...You can see why their plumage was so valued back in the day.

This one had an itch....

A moorhen swimming around in a maze of rushes....Loved the patterns of the plants' reflections....

An anhinga up in a tree squawked and warned everybody at the pond that Sparky was there...

And then, Sparky saw a fairly good size alligator on the far side of the pond, slide into the water with a great big SPLASH and head across to the other side, the side that she was standing on. Sparky wasn't worried....Gators normally head into the water when they see someone coming. Besides, Sparky saw two big carp or catfish, and thought maybe the gator was heading for them.

The gator kept coming, closer and closer to the shore, and it was evident that he was NOT interested in the fish. He definitely was watching Sparky.

She was standing on the high bank right above him...She looked around for options just in case he decided to come out of the water. There was a set of three small trees right beside her. That was good enough for her. She really didn't think he was going to come out of the water until she saw his forefront legs starting to pull himself up to the bank. At that point, she was about two feet from the water's edge, so she backed off and went to the trees, waiting to see if he came out any further. He didn't. But he would have been right there at her feet had she stayed there. So she went to the sidewalk which was three feet further out from the bank, gave his resting spot a wide berth and slowly came up behind him, but not too close. She used the camera zoom to get this photo....

She decided it was probably a good time to leave.....Sparky thought this behavior was bold for an alligator, as many times as she has seen them. They NEVER have come toward her and as close as this one did. Perhaps this one might have not eaten for awhile and was just checking things out. Who knows? Sparky lacks a fear of alligators which is probably not a good thing. (SIGH! says an exasperated Eldo. I keep telling her, YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET SO CLOSE! Does she listen? NOPE! She actually texted me and said she was three feet from a big alligator!) But Sparky kept a close eye on the riverbank and didn't turn her back as she hopped back on her bike to head home. Guess the lack of fear comes from biking the Shark Valley Nature Trail in the Everglades where the gators were sunning themselves less than two feet from our bikes as we rode down the trail, counting ten gators or more that time, their heads pointed AT the bikes, not the other way!

It was another great ride in Paradise today.....  :-)

Jackpot Bike Ride Today

It's been a LO-O-N-G hot, humid summer down here in Bradenton...Hotter than normal, more humid than normal, and drier than normal. Sparky has been the lazy one in the family. She hasn't been out on her bike since mid summer, when things started to cook....In the pool once in awhile doing exercises but not as much as she should have been.

So-o-o-o-o....a cool front came in last night..We're talking the temperature was just around 60 degrees this morning when Sparky got up. Woo hoo! Time to get her bike out and get going! Not a cloud in the sky...And here's the very first thing she saw coming out of the back of the subdivision, near Jiggs Landing, the little preserve and waterway to the Braden River. She hadn't even gone half a mile on the bike when she heard lots of high pitched screeching. Hey, that sounded like a bald eagle cry! Not one, but TWO up high in a branch just across the street!

A great start! Headed down the road to Jiggs Landing...Not much going on there but a dragonfly who paused long enough for a photo...Did you know a dragonfly with its four wings can fly as fast as 30 m.p.h.? That 90% of young adult dragonflies get eaten by predators? That they have almost 360 degree field of vision? And, dragonflies are great mosquito eaters!

And a little while later, Sparky spotted this black bellied whistling duck on the left and another family of ducks keeping it company....

A few miles later and it was a great blue heron catching and eating something, not sure what!

Then, a great white heron or egret stalking some fish....Does anybody know how you tell the difference between the two?

Turn around another bend and another pond, and lo and behold.....A tricolor heron doing some fish stalking, too.

And the best saved for last, Sparky's favorite, a lone roseate spoonbill cruising around the golf course right down the fairway. Then he decided to head for the water.....

A fine day for a bike ride, indeed!  Not a cloud in the sky and temps will be moderate this coming week....YAY! About time! Sparky will be heading back out more regularly now, on her bike. She's got to get back to exercising on a regular basis!  See you later!

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!