Author: Kathleen

This is the photo on our traditional paper cards this year. It is an ornament on a tree in the Stephen Foster museum at Stephen Foster State Park.

Karl and I wish you and yours the very best of holiday seasons. We celebrate several holidays during this time, including Christmas, so we always wish people happy holidays knowing so many others do the same.

A Christmas Tree in Fernandina Beach, FL. The red and silver globes are ornaments, the yellow ones at the top are grapefruit!

Looking in the window at the store at Stephen Foster State Park during their Festival of Lights.

With sunrise 10 minutes in the future, I focused my camera on one of two buoys in the channel. Every minute or so, I took a shot. I watched as birds flew through my small area, dolphins showed up and surfaced for air occasionally, a pelican landed and floated by. I had no idea what I would get from this series. For the most part, the two buoys simply kept up their faithful red and green flashing, showing boaters the safe way to steer.

Part of the tradition of our beach trips include a walk on the boardwalk to the beach to ensure the sun rises each morning. We knew a storm moved slowly toward us from the east the first morning, bringing rain and possible thunder and lightning. Tornadoes warnings popped up and then expired along the path of the storm. As we walked through the camping loop, we saw very few indications that anyone else woke up that early.

On the beach we watched the faint light, then the addition of the sunrise colors, and finally the leading edge of the sun. We saw the footprints of two others who preceded us, and by sunrise they were just two small dark sticks to the right of the sun in my viewfinder. I noticed a single fellow camper standing on the boardwalk also watching and waiting.

Once the sun rose, we all meandered back to continue our day.

 

We had quite an interesting sky the other morning as a cold front moved in. I tried tracking the movement of the clouds with little success.

Since we led our first hike, and people showed up to hike a nature preserve in flip flops and sleeveless tops, we mention before starting that nature is not “(insert name of theme park with cartoon mouse)”. Any time you hike in a natural area, no matter how close to an urban or developed area, something else lives there. Sometimes they are not cute little squirrels or rabbits, but snakes including the venomous kind and maybe even alligators. We generally get a laugh.

I’ve seen many versions of warning signs before, this is the first I have seen that gives visitors who may be new to wild areas a comparison. I like it.

 

The ranger told us that the La Chua trail boardwalk remained open, but the rest stayed closed. We parked and walked down the paved walkway, crossing over the Gainesville-Hawthorne bike trail and through the wonderfully cool and definitely damp stone stable. We passed many people, definitely the place to visit on this Veteran’s Day holiday.

We heard and noticed Limpkins, a lot of Limpkins. Then we saw the pink egg sacks of the larger, invasive Apple Snail, the Limpkin’s favorite food, and knew why. In fact, once we started looking, the pink eggs sacks were everywhere.

As we walked along we saw a Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Heron, and Snowy Egret immediately. The Snowy egret stepped along deliberately and careful, apparently fishing. The Great Blue Heron stood majestically, watching. White Ibis mixed in with the herons, foraging with their curved bills. We saw a Red-shouldered hawk sitting in a trees, take off and land on some vegetation, and then take off again when a nearby Limpkin rushed toward it and let out the loud cry for which they are known. We stopped to talk to a fellow photographer, and noticed something come out of the vegetation, look around, and when noticed quickly duck back down. The Anhinga, also called the snake bird because of the long neck and bill, certainly demonstrated its name that time.

We noticed some larger birds perching in the distance, and as they flew realized we saw Northern Harriers, a winter bird. A Common Gallinule walked along the vegetation as we passed.

Reaching the end of the boardwalk, we didn’t really need the closed sign to understand why. The rest of the trail stood underwater.

 

We braved the mosquitoes on Paynes Prairie for a while, watching this family of Bluebirds. It seemed a little late for a baby to still be in the nest, but according to the Stokes Behavior book I consulted in this part of the country they can raise more than one family during the nesting season.

The two birds outside the nest, the parents we assume, flew off to catch food and came back, perching at the outside with head inside.

Karl took this beautiful family portrait.

Happy Thanksgiving from Karl, Kathleen, Sassy and Midnight