The Kid on the Running Board

Yesterday we left Ormond Beach and drove to our friend’s condo in Fort Meyers. Today they took us to the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve in Lee County. Yes, a slough (pronounced “slew”) is just a swamp, what’s so important about visiting one. Well, all wetlands should be looked upon as resources, not a useless puddle needing to be filled in and paved over. Sloughs retain storm water, reducing flooding; provide rest stops for migrating birds; replenish ground water levels; filter the surrounding drainage area; create an area of biodiversity useful for measuring the health of a locale. Really nothing important in this day and age. Let’s fill them in and build houses and shopping malls, stuff that will make money for the developers and bring in tax dollars for the city fathers.

The frogs don’t stand a chance!

Six Mile is a great place to visit. Nice boardwalk to stroll on, a variety of vegetation (much of it new to me), the tapping of an unseen woodpecker, the singing of a Carolina Wren, the grunting of a feral pig. Still a few Wild Iris’ blooming. Oh yeah, ‘gators too.

The above photo brings a new meaning to the expression “tree hugger”.

Yes, the dream has been realized! Yahoo! I have finally paddled a canoe in a warm location during the winter. Winter for me has always been snow and icicles and temperatures hovering around or below freezing. It doesn’t matter whether you are measuring the outdoor temperature in Celcius or Fahrenheit, when rivers and lakes freeze over it’s not only too cold to paddle, it becomes physically difficult.

Today I add the Tomoka River in Florida to the bodies of water I have paddled on. Turned out to be not that different than Ontario canoe country. Great Blue Herons and Belted Kingfishers flushing before I could get close enough for good photographs, Pileated Woodpecker holes in the trees. For a time I felt like I had been transported by flying canoe a thousand miles north to Algonquin Park. But no, the trees and shrubs were different. Yes, there were some pine trees, but overall the flora was different, except for the colour, everything was green.

It was good to have a paddle in my hands again. I didn’t get on the water last year. I have missed this. And it’s always neat to combine two passions, canoeing and nature photography. There were several Florida birds that allowed me to approach close enough to capture some good images. Photographing them from the water, shooting towards the shoreline, gives bird images a different perspective.

Monday February 28, 2011

Today is another special day. I’m driving to nearby Tomoka State Park where I will rent a canoe and go for a paddle. For years I have dreamed of warm-weather paddling, somewhere, anywhere.
When I arrive at the park gate and pay my $4 entry fee I learn that the outpost renting kayaks and canoes is closed on Mondays. Words cannot express my disappointment.
OK, I’ll check out the park anyway. At the outpost I find plastic kayaks and aluminium canoes. Big, old, heavy, dented canoes. Well, what should I expect on a rental fleet, ultra-light  kevlar Swift canoes with wooden gunnels?
Numerous white butterflies are available to photograph but I ignore them because I have lots of images of Cabbage Whites.
I drive further into the park, stop and walk around. I can hear and see dozens of robins. I shoot some resting on branches and a few feeding on berries on low bushes.
This park is on a narrow peninsula and next I walk to the riverbank. I hike along the shoreline. As I round the tip the sand beach in front of me is moving, it’s alive with something. Small crabs, I think, quickly disappearing into the sand. I chase them, trying to obtain close-up photos, but this proves unfruitful. Plan B. I sit on a large driftwood log, lower the tripod legs, change the lens from a 60-300 to a 17-55 and wait. Success comes to the patient.
During Plan B a pod of dolphins and a diving pelican were also observed and photographed.

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

Friday February 25, 2011

Drove through WARM drizzle this a.m. No snow. Crossed into Florida at noon. Yahoo!! Sure is turning out to be a “ yahoo “ kind of trip. Decide to overnight in St. Augustine.
Went shopping. I “had” to buy a pair of Vans. Grampa has to keep up to Molly (and Phil). But I didn’t spring for two pairs of different colours (sorry, Molly).

Wednesday February 23, 2011

Hard to believe today has arrived. I am retired, I am leaving on the longest vacation of my life.
Over the last few weeks many people have asked me how I feel, what’s it like??? I continue to have difficulty answering those questions. I’m excited (now, not at first), I’ll miss parts of my job, I’ll miss relationships built up over the last 30 years, the uncertainties of the future are scary, I look forward to photographing birds in Florida & Texas & SW & California, I will enjoy visiting with family and friends, the risk of being involved in a car accident increases with each mile/kilometre travelled, I will see sights I have never seen, more time with Kathryn will be good, eating and napping when the urges come will be a treat, etc., etc., etc.
Halfway through Pennsylvania the snow has disappeared. Yahoo!!!
Stopped at Beckley, West Virginia tonight.

Nature Notes: Spotted a male Red-winged Blackbird in the cat-tails of a snowy marsh in N.Y. state. My harbinger of spring (in the north). Yahoo!!
No deer seen, nor any tracks in the snow between the trees and the highway. Strange.
Walked through woodlot behind the motel. A butterfly flitted around me for a few minutes, probably attracted to my lavender t-shirt. Also saw some deer tracks. Nature is where you find it.