Happy Birthday to Me
by Ross
Saturday, February 26, 2011
To-day is my birthday, that special, retirement one. Kathryn is allowing me to drag her to The St. Augustine Alligator Farm. A word of explanation. Yes, there are alligators (and other reptiles) there, but I go there to watch and photograph birds. There is a boardwalk through a large alligator pond. The pond has many native trees growing in it. Local herons & egrets & storks & spoonbills find these trees safer places to nest and fledge their young because the high concentration of ‘gators keeps tree-climbing racoons and opossums away. Yes, eggs or nestlings can fall into the water and be eaten but the birds survival rate is much higher here. It is a bird photographer’s hotspot because the birds have become used to the tourists walking by and some of the tree branches are so close that you can obtain remarkable images.
Tonight we sleep at the timeshare condo in Ormond Beach