Welcome to Celery Fields, Sarasota!

Well, hello, everyone! Sparky is back...Yes, everything is well and good starting the New Year 2019. Sparky is on holiday break from teaching/subbing at school, so it's time for an update on Where's Eldo? Eldy is golfing, Sparky is on hiatus from school, so time to revisit the Celery Fields in Sarasota, a gem of a birding spot, if you are into that. (Note: All of today's photos are Sparky's from combined trips to Celery Fields and walking the perimeter, along the ditches, the boardwalks and the "Hill".)

Purple Gallinule

If you are NOT into birding, that's ok, too. How about fitness? You can climb the hill at the Celery Fields many times and get lots of steps and altitude in on your fitness watch that you may have gotten for Christmas. Celery Fields Hill is the highest point in Sarasota County at 75-80 feet and on an average walk/climbing day, Sparky gets in 2-3 miles, about 9500 steps, and 21 flights of stairs. The hill itself is not much to look at. Deep ruts from rainwater rushing down the hill from occasional storms make the climb a little bit of a challenge, but there are also meandering loose gravel trails that traverse the hill horizontally. To get your heart rate up a little, follow the trails that lead up and down on the side of the hill. Or, you can just take your time and walk around and around the hill. The trails on the hill are very narrow and uneven, so the hill itself is NOT wheelchair accessible or scooter friendly.

Across the street from the hill are sidewalks that go around the perimeter of the some of the fields, two boardwalks with covered areas that are wheelchair friendly and you can see plenty of nature even if you don't venture anywhere else but those sidewalks and boardwalks. The best nature to be found is along the canals and ditches which have some semblance of a gravel level trail to them and other parts are flattened berms that you can walk along as well.

Little Green Heron

Celery Fields is a combination of open marshland, deep ponds, shallow pools, and canals. It is the site of 360+ acres of the county's primary storm water collection. It has developed into a major birding attraction for the area and now has an Audubon Nature Center right there at the fields and trails. 

Male Boat Tailed Grackle

One hundred wetlands acreage has been restored. There are 200,000 aquatic plants and trees there, and over 215 species of birds have been recorded. There are two boardwalks where you can observe the daily comings and goings of lots of different types of birds and ducks.

Female hooded merganser

Sparky is not a birder, but she sure enjoys seeing the wide variety of species of birds that are there, and with the help of local Audubon Society birders and naturalists that volunteer their time a couple of hours a day during "season" (when all the snowbirds are in town, a species of exotic bird, haha)...she has learned a LOT about the birds that come to the fields. Like this loggerhead shrike, that impales its prey on thorns or barbed wire. It's also called the "butcherbird" for this reason. It gets its name "loggerhead" because its head is much larger in proportion to its body, but you can't tell that in this particular photo.

Loggerhead Shrike

Celery Fields is rated #22 on Trip Advisor, but Sparky thinks it ought to be further up on the list of things to do and see in Sarasota!

 

Male hooded merganser

 Sparky has seen LOTS of species of birds, from hawks to spoonbills (her favorite)....

....and anhingas to parakeets! These are Nanday parakeets and there are bunches of them at Celery Fields on any given day. The latest exotic bird destined to become very common in this area....

Tiny birds to big birds....This is either a yellow rump warbler or a pine warbler...

Hope you enjoyed today's photos....Hope you have a "ducky" New Year in 2019!

Blue wing teal duck and friends

                                          Sparky and Eldo

Bike Riding Beauties

Sparky had been riding her bike in between subbing days, averaging anywhere from 12-20 miles a couple of times a week until she was sidelined with severe tendonitis on an ankle. No idea how that happened except thru ignoring a slight twist that must have happened months ago, then dancing her booty off a couple of months ago, then wearing not enough shoe support while subbing....all of the above, probably. It got to the point where she could hardly walk at the end of the day after subbing. Can't have that, so off to the doctor. The ankle was taped for a few days, and Sparky was told no bike riding (that is one of the worst things you can do for a bad ankle, the doctor said) and no swimming for three weeks. That was tough, following the doctor's orders. Then Sparky got a Trilock ankle brace which was great, and that helped a great deal. It's a little bit of an ordeal to put on, but you get faster at it after a few uses. TONS of velcro everywhere on it, always catches in the wrong place, so you have to keep unpeeling it until you get all the straps on layer by layer. After a month, the ankle still hurts now and then, but physical therapy is about to begin, so that should strengthen it, MAYBE.

Back to bike riding...YIPPEE! And here are some of Sparky's favorite photos from recent bike rides....All the photos are with a Canon SX530, a little point and shoot camera, currently just under 200.00, and it has a nice 50X zoom. If the pictures are with an iPhone, Sparky has captioned them as such.  Red lilies....

An osprey on the nest.....She's feeding two little ones and has a bit of fish caught on her beak.

Here's the dad preening....

March was the month for many sandhill crane hatchings in the area...Sparky took LOADS of photos of the mama and the babies, and here is ONE of her favorites...That's the mama's leg on the right.

Sparky was thrilled to catch a yellow rump warbler sitting still long enough to get a photo.

Blackbirds are a dime a dozen around here, but isn't this one beautiful with the iridescent shades of blue in its feathers?

Sparky's favorite Florida bird, the roseate spoonbill. This one was chosen to be featured in a weekly newspaper in our area...

Sparky likes the bottle brush tree...There are always little busy bees on them....This photo is with the iPhone 6S.

And finally....a limpkin or glossy ibis...It has the head plumage of a limpkin, and the body of the glossy ibis...But Sparky thought it was gorgeous....

Hope you enjoyed today's nature show!  Sparky will be back soon with tales from Sarasota Jungle Gardens, a very cool place to visit if you are in the area....Bye for now....

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!

Sparky's Spoonbill Study and a Dolphin Tale

Sparky had a sandhill crane study on the blog, now it's time for a spoonbill study....We were at the Gulf  Drive Tiki Bar and Grill on Anna Maria Island on a Sunday morning. We have been there several times and had seen dolphins every single time so we were hoping to see them today. Nope! The fish weren't swimming in close to shore, so the dolphins were somewhere else. We still had a wonderful breakfast and saw some great shorebirds and pelicans in flight early this morning. This is a snowy egret taking off. He's got black legs and brilliant yellow feet, that's how you know it's a snowy egret, although you can't see his yellow feet in the photo.

Sparky likes to watch the pelicans soar and glide so low across the water....One of the names for a bunch of pelicans is a squadron. They are so unified in flight, they look like a squadron! This was the leader, there were about four more behind him.

(Uh, Sparky...the spoonbill study? She's always getting sidetracked, you know....explains E.) OH! Yeah! We went looking for dolphins on the other side of Anna Maria Island, but first we spotted a roseate spoonbill outside an apartment complex with some ibis, foraging for food. Here come the spoonbill photos.....First, Sparky's favorites...Coming or going? Not sure which....

"See this lady in front of us? I think she's stalking us!"

"Maybe if I hide this tree, she won't see me."

And here's a compilation of the rest with some repeats....

And here comes everything else about them....They are so beautiful, you'd think they'd be the Florida state bird but they are not. (The mockingbird is!) Spoonbills were once almost extinct, but they have made such a comeback due to conservation and preservation efforts, there are quite a few of them and they no longer need protection.  Spoonbills weigh 2-4 pounds, and stand about 3 feet tall. They are a member of the ibis family--those white birds in the photos with the curved orange beaks.  Spoonbills are fun to watch as they feed, sweeping their bills from side to side, scooping up tiny little fish, crustaceans, snails, shrimp, insects and frogs. Immature birds are lighter in color and have white, feathered heads. The mature birds have a greenish cast to their heads. The spoonbills get their beautiful pink and red colored feathers from the food they eat, like flamingoes. Just like if you ate a bazillion carrots, your skin might get a little orangish tinge?  Sparky's mom told her that one time....

Spoonbills nesting time is November and December, and they build their nests in trees....They are very social birds and usually hang out together in flocks or with other birds like the ibis, heron, and storks. Their wing feathers are amazing! If you are lucky enough to get to see them fly, the underneath feathers are a brilliant pink/red color. Sparky captured one flying away from her today. A little blurry photo, but you can still see the brilliant pinkish red tinge....So gorgeous! This spoonbill was hanging outside an apartment complex on Anna Maria Island, so you can see them just about anywhere in Sarasota and Bradenton, you just have to be on the watch for a turkey shaped big bird with pink feathers in a crowd of other wading birds in marshy areas, or anywhere for that matter! Sparky saw one in a ditch outside of Sun 'n' Fun RV park on Fruitville Road last winter.

Sparky hopped back in the car, and we headed towards Bradenton. As we were driving through Anna Maria Island and crossing one of the causeways, we saw dolphins in the water! Awesome! Gotta stop, Eldo, so we did!  And here they are, just lazing around on an early Sunday morning...a pod of at least five or six, and more than one pod in the area....

We kept watching and saw a few more....and got to see them spout as they came up for air...cool!

What a great morning for bird watching, dolphin watching, and nature watching in general! It's one of our favorite things to do...A drive of about 20 minutes from our house, and we are in Anna Maria Island, one of MANY places to see dolphins and beautiful birds.....Thanks for coming along today....