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....

Sparky's Sandhill Crane Study

Sparky never tires of seeing wildlife and nature...we are so lucky to have beautiful birds who regularly visit the golf course behind our house. Every day we see ibis, plenty of cranes, and an occasional roseate spoonbill flying overhead. We remember making a special trip to the Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area in Medaryville, IN when we lived back in Indiana, to see the flock of sandhill cranes who were regularly migrating back and forth from the northern parts of the U.S. down to the southern states twice a year, in the spring and again in the fall. Jasper Pulaski Wildlife Refuge is directly in line with the migration flyway of the Eastern group of sandhill cranes who fly from the northern states to winter in the southern states, Florida being one of the top destinations just like it is for people! We got up extra early one morning, driving a couple of hours from where we were staying in Indiana at the time, to try and see them take off at dawn to feed in other marshy areas. Dawn and dusk are the best times to see them coming in and flying out from the Goose Pasture area. There are tens of thousands of cranes who visit that area each year, peaking around the middle to late November. In one day, if you are lucky, you might see as many as 30,000 at one time! The day we went, we saw maybe a couple hundred or so, and it was kind of disappointing as they were so far away in the meadow, too.

The sandhill cranes that are in our backyard are here all year round because of the nice weather. Granted, we only see pairs, but these on the golf course let you come right up to them and get very close. They just go about their business of eating and tearing up the greens looking for bugs! That area around the crane's feet is in the middle of the greens and he did all that damage. Looks like a golfer who tried a whole bunch of times to hit the ball and missed, and then didn't fix all his divots. Bet the golf maintenance guys have a time with fixing all these birds' divots!

Sparky loves to watch them do their thing and listen to their sounds they make when they talk to each other....It's a very gentle, special sound, almost a cooing rapid clucking sound when they are not threatened and feel comfortable in your presence.....

After watching them for awhile, and talking to them..Sparky said, "Hey, guys...why don't you give me a little wing action, please?"  So they did!

"A little higher, please?"

"That's it! Just one more shot, you guys...."

And soon after that, they decided they'd been accommodating enough and it was time to go. But first, gotta check the wind direction for flight path...

And, we're outta here!

Bye for now......

RVing and Nature in the Suburbs

For my still RVing friends...Saw this on Facebook, shared by Laurie Owens, and just had to share here...

Top 25 signs that you live in a RV! 

You might live in an RV if… 
1) Your GPS is your best friend! 
2) You NEVER know where items are in the grocery store. 
3) You dump your own sewage and it is no big deal.
4) Your family has to ask you where you are when they call.
5) You keep both winter and summer wardrobes because you don’t know where you will end up.
6) You know what snowbirds are and have seen them in their natural habitat.
7) Your HOME has wheels.
 You blog so that YOU will remember where you have been!
9) You look in your pantry and see that you have cereal from New Jersey, pasta from Texas, canned goods from Alabama and crackers from California.
10) You are always the new guy in town
11) You know where to find the best, most reliable internet.
12) You own very little and are proud of that!
13) You follow the warm weather.
14) You hang pictures and decoration on the wall with velcro.
15) You don’t own any figurines or other cutesy stuff that sits on countertops.
16) You have slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
17) You meet up with a family in Virginia that you met in California!
18) You remember friends by what state you met them in!
19) You grocery shop every three days because your refrigerator is so small.
20) You have been to more museums, aquariums, national parks, monuments and zoos than you can remember.
21) You have often “pulled chocks”.
22) You look confused when someone asks you “where are you from?”
23) You get your mail 2-3 weeks late regularly from your mail forwarding service. 
24) You have witnessed your toilet “burping” at you.
25) You crave adventure and can not wait to see what is around the next corner!

Guess I can blame #19 for going to the grocery so much! 

courtesy of the internet

Another update on the turtles, this time green sea turtles....Two years ago, only 19 green turtles nested on the beaches in the area. This year there were 104 turtle nests from Manasota Key to Anna Maria Island. Green sea turtles are having one of the best years ever as far as nesting goes and Sarasota County is the main spot for them. Cool! The east coast of Florida has an even higher concentration of green sea turtles...We have been to the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge south of Melbourne, FL, and so have many other blogging friends. The Carr refuge has more than 13,000 (!) green turtle nests this year!

Most sea turtles are listed as endangered, which means at the brink of becoming extinct and loggerheads are considered "threatened", which means they COULD becoming extinct in the near future.

Loggerheads are much more common than green turtles in Florida. Green turtles are larger than most turtle species, with an average weight of 350 pounds, and they have a very distinctive white underbelly. The green turtle nests look a lot different than the loggerhead nests, and have been compared to a grenade going off as far as how they look.

The volunteers who walk the beaches in the predawn hours looks for signs of hatched nests. Every hatched nest is excavated three days later to record the number of eggs and to look for little hatchlings that didn't make it out. Sparky wants to sign up for turtle patrol! But it means getting up at 5:00 AM, which is just a WEE bit early for her! And it's a very popular retiree volunteer project, they might not need any....the end of October is the end of turtle nesting season, so Sparky might sign up for next year....

And here's a bit of nature in our own backyard, so to speak...just down the street, a half block from our house, we saw this today....hanging out in the pond on our street....

Along with an anhinga, also called the "snakebird" or "American darter"....The females have brown necks...

If you get to close, the female will started posturing, hissing, and swelling her throat to scare you away....But Sparky was more interested in the gator, of course!

This gator was a lot bigger than little Gertie, who had been in the pond a couple of weeks before...Maybe this was her daddy or her mama!

Sparky just loves seeing these gators right in our very own neighborhood. No need to go to Myakka State Park to see the gators, we have 'em right here! Although Sparky still wants to visit the Deep Hole in Myakka. That's a two mile hike into the park interior and two miles back out on foot. She'll have to wait till November when it will be drier on the park grounds. Now, you'd have to swim to the hole, no thank you! (just kidding)...However, the park is severely flooded from the ten inches rain in two days this week so it will be awhile before Sparky heads over there...

And here's a pair of cranes right in our yard. They came within a couple of feet of Sparky, so she plopped down on the grass to get some photos..

This sandhill crane was trying to get some itchy feathers off his back....He's got one in his beak at the moment....

And that's all the nature in our neighborhood for today....See you down the road a bit......thanks for visiting with us now and then....

From the Sarasota Suburbanite to The Delta Swamp Rats

Well, technically, I live in Bradenton, but I was thinking at one point of changing my "off the road" blog, "Millie's Girls" to Sarasota Suburbanite. I just liked the sound of it. We spend a LOT of time in Sarasota, and still do, even though we're off the road and living in Bradenton now....

Went to Ocean Blues a couple of nights ago...It was wonderful as always...They have a new chef, and the food is even more terrific than ever for bar food. We had "Meatball Lollipops" which isn't the greatest sounding name, but it was delicious! Delicious meatballs on buffalo mozzarella cheese with fresh basil on crostinis and shaved parmesan on top. Sorry for the blurry photo..need the new iPhone 5!

Steve Arvey, our favorite blues/jazz/ and miscellaneous anything and everything guitar player was there with Tony Smith, a fantastic harmonica player. The name of their group was the Delta Swamp Rats. Steve was playing a cigar box guitar. Cigar box guitars go back to the late 1880's. They were really made from cigar boxes and had fewer number of strings. Sort of the poor man's guitar back in the day. There's been a resurgence of cigar box guitars and a devoted following of musicians. Steve had a couple with him tonight.

Did you know you can call a harmonica player a harpist if you so choose? I did not know that. Tony was fantastic...He had FIFTEEN harmonicas on stage with him and they were all keyed to a certain note, so all he had to do was pick up the right one to play with Steve.

Together they made fantastic music, lots of Mississippi River/Delta blues or as Steve says...

a mixture of low down dirty blues of the 20's and 30's with modern Mississippi Delta Funk sounds. Cigar Box Screaming Slide Guitar with Big Tone Fat Sounding Harmonica mixed with a Heavy Drum Sound producing a unique sound that entrances people. 

Steve has a wonderful, chameleon like voice. His voice changes for the music that he plays. He's got some high ranges, man! He was the gravelly voiced blues singer this particular night....AWESOME! This duo is so great, they won a contest to represent the Suncoast Blues Society and are going to Memphis for the 2014 International Blues Challenge. We're excited for them!

We had a wonderful time chatting with musicians this evening, and getting to hear Steve and Tony at Ocean Blues was just icing on the cake.......

News From Florida....

"RECORD GATOR CAUGHT!".....Holey Moley! This one's a humongous one! With an ugly mug for sure! BUT, it wasn't caught in Florida, it was caught in Mississippi. Oh, well, you know Sparky loves gators so she just had to share this gator news with ya! Over seven hundred, twenty-seven pounds and thirteen feet and three hours to land him....

Speaking of gators, did you know that truckers refer to blown tire debris as "gators"? The #1 road debris is blown tire pieces on our nation's highways. "Gators" are shredded remnants of 18 wheelers' truck tires. You can see why they call they call them gators after seeing the photo above, can't you? Most of the blown tires come from retreads or capped tires, news sources say. Since a new truck tire can cost 600 dollars or more, and a retread is around 200, you can't blame the truckers for purchasing the cheaper tires. Does it seem like there are a lot more "gators" on the roads these days? In our travels, it sure seemed that way. We've had a couple close calls from tires being blown right as we drove by a rig or two. Trying to avoid road debris is the cause of over 25,000 accidents a year in Canada and the U.S.

Other news....A young man was caught on a passerby's camera, messing with a turtle's nest here in Sarasota. Someone nearby saw him uncovering the nest and taking turtle eggs! He said it was an older nest and he was going to take the eggs home and release them later. Yeah, right, buddy. SHAME, SHAME! There are warning signs posted all over the place. He's a Florida native, he should know better! But, thanks to social media, they found him and fined him. Messing with sea turtle nests is a third degree FELONY, you can receive a fine of up to $5,000 and/or jail time of one to five years in prison. With only one in 1,000 baby turtles surviving birth and the arduous trip from the nest down to the water's edge, it's a miracle they even make it at all. Seagulls swoop in for the kill as the hatchlings make their way to the water if they don't manage to head in the wrong direction or the eggs and hatching babies get eaten by raccoons, fire ants or ghost crabs.

If you missed Sparky's post about the video of sea turtles hatching, be sure to check out her Facebook timeline page where the video is posted. (find me under "Jeannie Sparks") When you see how these little newborns struggle to get over little sand mounds to make their way to the sea, you will be all the more amazed at that they make it at all. No wonder turtle researchers and volunteers who work to help  them want people to fill in their sand castles and digs if they are near the nesting grounds.

OK, this is not really Florida news, but have you seen the cute Chevy "Spark" model cars? They come in Florida colors, at least this one is...Why does it not surprise Sparky that it is mauve? (The color EVERYWHERE in the house we bought!) And look at those pretty multi pastel houses just beyond the car. This was on Anna Maria Island, one of the hottest growing tourist destinations these days and a very charming, beautiful community.

Sparky has heard that pink is passé, and now the new color in vogue for 2014 is "Grape Ice" for this model. She'd be able to find her car in a parking lot a whole lot easier with this one! Jalapeño lime green is another choice for these cute little cars....(Oh, boy, hope she isn't thinking about a new car! says E.) Nope! Just got the Honda paid off, so gonna wait for awhile...Unless the car starts having problems which usually happens when you get the darn thing all paid for, right?

Back to gators again...Eldy just told Sparky that one of the subdivisions not too far from us, Heritage Oaks, sent out a newsletter to their residents to check the community pool before jumping in. Apparently, an alligator thought one of their pools looked very inviting, and decided to go for a swim!
Our community pool is safe, so Eldy went for a swim....a rarity!

And that's all the Florida news that's fit to print for today.....Bye for now....

Love this plant! It's called the Bird of Paradise -- seen all over our neighborhood

Wanna See the Baby Turtles Hatch?

Sparky wishes she could say that she saw them come out...We headed over for a third time to Coquina Beach where there are at least six marked turtle nests. The last time we were there, all six nests were dormant but the signs were still up, so we knew they hadn't hatched yet. This morning, about two weeks later, we were over to the beach early early, before sunrise. Three of the nests had already been hatched. The signs had come down, we knew the babies had come and gone....They usually come out at night, so our chances of seeing them in the early dawn were slim to none.

Somehow, a guy over in Vero Beach happened to be on hand when some baby leatherback turtles started scratching above their heads. He saw the sand moving, trained his camera on the spot, and he caught the very first wave of babies. Here they come! You've gotta watch this, as it's just about impossible to be on hand for an amazing event such as this, and he captured it from start to finish...Thank you, Rick Bryant for sharing with your friends whom in turn, shared it on Facebook and it made its way here. ..Here's the link:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=564407943626810&set=vb.100001728280142&type=2&theater

If that link doesn't work, you can go to my timeline page and see it there....I've watched it several times now, and it is just a wonderful thing to see....Jeannie Sparks

What else is new with Sparky and Eldo? Not too much...we've been going to estate sales AGAIN, and looking for bargains...Sparky saw a pair of "lawyer" bookcases yesterday, for 80.00. The bookcases had the lift up glass windows that slide back so you can get at your books and knickknacks, or stuff, and thought a pair of those would be great for fabric storage in the craft room. Back we went today, thinking we'd catch them at half off, or marked down a bit, but Sparky missed the sale by minutes. SOLD! to another person. Phooey! Oh, well...another bargain might come up again one of these days....Saw a huge jigsaw puzzle that was all about the different kinds of palm trees. Sparky hates jigsaw puzzles, too much concentration required on those 500-1,000 puzzle pieces . so she passed it by, but not before taking just a couple of photos of the box front to learn about some of the palms that are here in Florida. Eldy says he saw somewhere that there are over 2500 species of palm trees and just about all of them can be grown in Florida!

A trip to Hobby Lobby to stock up on fall greens and fall flowers to make wreaths....Finished my daughter's copycat hat from Etsy. Here it is on the original model. She was selling this hat on Etsy for 90.00 but it's no longer available, so I thought I'd try my hand at recreating it for Kerry.

And here's my version. It's barely on my head as my head is too big for it.

Turned out pretty cute, but it will look a lot cuter on her! Hope it fits! And that's all folks, for now.....

Breakfast at the Tiki Hut, Anna Maria Island

Sparky had heard that there can be lots of dolphins seen around Anna Maria Island's piers, about 30 minutes from our house. It was a free fishing day, so we thought there might be LOTS of action both from the fishermen and the dolphins hoping to snag something. Off we went to Anna Maria Island....The first pier is sort of a historical one, but part of it has been shut down due to a restaurant failure and some remodeling issues. Some fishermen still come out to the pier part that's open and they fish...It's a beautiful setting, early in the morning.....We saw one dolphin in the distance....

We went to a larger pier next....The Anna Maria Island Pier...It has a working restaurant on the premises, and the prices were very reasonable. We were too busy looking for dolphins and talking to fishermen to stop and eat there today, but we'll try it another day....Did we see dolphins? Yep! One going down....

And one coming up....

Always interesting things to see and hear on the fishing pier...Not sure what these folks are looking for, but there's SOMETHING down there catching their eye.

If you're lucky, you might hear the latest fishing yarn of the one that got away...Or the one that gave you a fight...Eldy talked to a young man who had caught a small shark last night. The guy was somewhat wasted, wasn't watching what he was doing, and the shark promptly latched onto his wrist and bit him! The guy's friends had to pull the shark off his arm, leaving bloody bite marks.

As it was, walking around the pier, if you are not fishing, you gotta watch out for the arm back, ready- to-cast-swing from all these people fishing. Wonder if they ever hook somebody behind them? Everybody seemed to be careful today, on not hooking a really BIG catch, like Sparky!

reflections from the restaurant window, a safer place to stand!

By this time we were getting hungry..We thought we would eat at the Gulf Drive Cafe...It's totally tiki huts! A big giant one for a big seating area, another big one for the bar, and then individual ones out on the beach. What a setting!

You can eat inside the restaurant, on the boardwalk beside the restaurant, or on the beach. Naturally, we picked the beach....it was GREAT! Food was nothing out of the ordinary, but VERY reasonable prices for breakfast considering the setting. Most places we would have paid double for what we got and for being right out on the beach, your toes in the sand.

We watched the divers out a ways in the water, looking for the remains of a sugar boat down below in the waters...jet skis, paddle boarders, and the birds....

A beautiful morning, a beautiful day...and Sparky got to see her dolphins...And Eldo got to see some bikinis...Although not as many as he would have liked.   :-)