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....