Where's Eldo?: wood stork

Sunday, March 8, 2015

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......... :-)

Sunday, January 11, 2015

A Bevy of Birds on the Bike Ride Today

It's back to bike riding now that the holiday feasting days are over....Sparky found another route to take all around the neighborhoods of Bradenton and Sarasota. This one was sixteen miles from Sparky's house to Lakewood Ranch, one of the largest planned communities in the nation. Something like the 9th largest. What's so pretty about these rides are the wetlands everywhere and the large ponds and lakes. Almost every residential area has one or more large ponds or wetland areas. This particular route has large lakes on both sides of the street in one section and TONS of wetlands along the way, guaranteeing bird sightings every time on a ride.

On her way to the Lakewood Ranch area, Sparky saw a Cooper's hawk....So hard to hold the camera still on a zoom stretched all the way out! She should take her little Gorilla tripod with her on her bike rides.

Sparky saw a wood stork...He was very cooperative having his photo taken......

He just posed and posed.....

And stood still for the longest time....

Such a prehistoric looking bird, don't you think?

She saw this cool interplay of shadows on a large palm leaf from the late afternoon sun. Doesn't it look like a bird flying?

Further down, Sparky saw two pairs of hooded mergansers! She had never seen these before.....Because it was so late in the day, the photos of the ducks are a little blurry, but they were so cool the way they mirrored each other!

Sparky kept moving around the pond trying to get a little closer, but they kept moving around, too!

Finally, the light was rapidly diminishing and the photos were getting worse, so she took one more and headed back home....

Onn the way home, there were some gorgeous flowering trees that perfumed the air with an intense scent. The flowers were actually a deeper, rosier shade of pink, but the setting sun gave them and orangey tone....The smell was wonderful!