1 February 2018 Lover's Key State Park

Today's adventure was a bit different for us. We started our day at a Lover's Key State Park. It was a new state park to explore. We really stepped out of the norm with a walk on the beach.

Painted rocks seem to be everywhere. Near the start of the boardwalk we spotted the one below. It seemed truly appropriate for the park and for the month with Valentine's Day.

The boardwalk gave us an early birding fix.

On the prowl

Breakfast is in sight.

Success is nearly achieved.

There were multiple pelicans roosting in the trees at the beach side end of the boardwalk.

At last we were at the beach! We were actually taking a walk along the beach!

We hunted for shells.

We even found a really nice stiff pen which was the perfect shell for a beach at Lover's Key.

We found a cache. We spotted a willet.

After our beach visit, we made our way to the trail and made the first sighting of a nesting pair of osprey. We would see them on and off for the rest of our visit to the park. As with most osprey encounters, they were loud and vocal. Nesting near park buildings is a great way to be constantly stressed by the presence of humans.

We enjoyed our trail walk as much as the beach. We were cautiously hopeful for a second sighting of manatees in the channel, but the the water was quiet today save for paddlers out hoping for the same sighting as us.

We also found a small pond area with a nice assortment of birds for the watching.

We werer happy to spot a pine warbler moving in the area.

We made our way back and decided there was enough time left to enjoy a return visit to Crew. This area had been burned since our last visit.

Ammo can geocache containers do not fare well in burns.

Besides the burn damage to the lid, this container was showing the effects of the yearly floods.

We made repairs and added bags and/or logbooks wherever we could.

Wildflowers were emerging with the warmer weather.

Roundleaf Bluetts

We even spotted a few late afternoon woodpeckers.

Our true, big find of the day came when we spotted an orchid.

We were doing the happy dance when another couple came down the trail. We tried to explain we had just found an orchid. They moved quickly on.

Soon, another day of a quickly passing vacartion was done.

31 January Birding at Harnes Marsh

After our visit the evening before, we decided to spend the day at Harns Marsh exploring all the trails. The trails didn't disappoint with birds of all kinds everywhere.

Pie billed grebes with young

Drying its wings...

A Baker's Dozen

This was our first spotting of a loggerhead shrike. It's always exciting to spot a bird for the first time.

We spotted two different groups of sandhill cranes on our walk.

In between the amazing birds, we enjoyed the caches on the trail. One of the hiders put extra effort into their hides and decorated the ammo cans.

Just after finding the turtle ammo can, we made our first sighting of a broad-winged hawk. It was in a tree almost directly above a different cache.

We always joke about how appropriate the name cattle egret is for these birds since we always seem to see them in fields where there is livestock grazing. We may need to re-think as this afternoon there were quite a few in a nearby field, and there are no cattle at Harnes Marsh.

I would have passed by this green heron tucked away in the brush if Ali hadn't noticed it. Green herons cover a wide range including our home area, but we generally spot them only once or twice a year.

It's hard to imagine just how plentiful food sources must be in the marsh to support so many birds.

A few of the caches we found had been replaced. A few were in really rough shape. Surprisingly, many of them were survirvors that made it through the hurricane and flooding. We had a great time on a perfect vacation day.

We made one last stop before dinner at a cache behind a shopping center. It's not our usual location of choice for caching, but Ali noticed the logs were very positive. It seemed to be the shopping center development left a natural area at the property edge. I wasn't expecting too much and left my camera behind (also didn't want to look like a total geek). We were happily surprised to see an oasis for shorebirds with plenty of them in the area.