Natural encounters

Last night we returned from a rainy Florida vacation served sunny-side up. Although we may have been hoping for sunshine and 75 degrees, much of the week turned out to be cool and wet. But, since neither of us have experienced but one or two rainfalls in the past year of Southern California living, we didn’t let it get us down and were actually happy to be reminded of just how nice a little variety can be. On the first night we enjoyed the rain s0 much we slept with the bedroom window open in order to better hear the rhythmic pounding of a midnight storm as we drifted off to sleep after a 12-hour day of coast-to-coast travel. It was really very peaceful, although it did lead the next morning to a hostile encounter with a Palmetto Bug – a Floridian euphemism for a cockroach – who seized the opportunity of the open window to come in from said rainstorm and dry off atop our bedspread. A fun reminder of some of the other variety that Florida has to offer in terms of wildlife. The next night the window stayed closed. After the rain subsided later in the week we decided to visit nature instead of inviting it in and took a couple trips to the great outdoors. And of course I took my camera! The first night out was a visit to Myakka River Park at sunset, where we encountered alligators, wild pigs and a young doe standing quietly in the woods. It was surprisingly brave, allowing me to get within 30 feet or so to make an image. Later, at sunset, we walked out on the birdwalk, a long pier extending over a marsh along the edge of the Upper Myakka Lake. There you can see numerous birds such as ibises, eagles, herons and sandhill cranes, which I got an image of as a pair came in from the distance to join a group of others who had gathered in the water at dusk.
Two days later a break in the weather allowed us to go out on kayaks in Sarasota Bay off Siesta Key. Again we were hoping for the sun to break through, but it turned out to be better that it stayed behind the clouds. It was both the perfect temperature and the even light was great for taking pictures of the wildlife that I wouldn’t normally be able to take in the middle of the day. Out among the mangroves we came across scores of egrets, tri-colored herons, ibises and cormorants feeding on shrimp, bait fish and eel. The highlight though was when a trio of cormorants decided to hang out and play. For a good half hour the birds followed us around, swimming back and forth beneath our boats. We weren’t sure what their interest was, but we’re guessing it had something to do with our oars stirring up food from the shallow waters. It was a really unusual and exciting experience.
Of course we did more than watch nature on our trip – mostly eating actually – but since the photos here pertain only to that I’ll end here for now.