Author: Kathleen

Thank you to everyone who followed and visited our blog in 2023. We had an interesting year getting settled in the much smaller house we moved into late December 2022. We finally did a long overdue significant downsize, in living space and in storage space. It took us until July to clear out the storage unit we rented “temporarily” as we made hard decisions of what to keep and what no longer fit our life. Those hard decisions worked and we did not find ourselves missing anything we gave away or discarded. After months of arranging what we kept, living with it for a bit, and then re-arranging, I’m happy to say we are about where we need to be with the house. We love our new neighborhood. Neighbors are friendly and keep an eye out for each other.

We also traveled more and longer, taking advantage of the ease of closing up our smaller house. We explored more of the southeast US in our motor-home, finding fascinating new places to visit and photograph. Midnight, our cat, settled into both the smaller home and the extended RV travel very well. Sometimes when traveling it seemed she would almost prefer we went smaller and moved into the motor home!

Professionally we re-assessed where we are now with our photography and how the world of photography changed especially over the past few years, and feel excited about the possibilities. Our naturalist work slowed as fewer opportunities working on projects with local park and preserves became available, so we decided to expand our scope and create more of our own opportunities.

We have a lot of short and long trips planned for 2024. One of our goals for this year is stay longer in each place we visit, rather than a few days and on to the next destination. We already planned to revisit a few places where we wished we had stayed longer on our first trip.

This blog continues and we hope you still visit us. My goal is still to publish every Wednesday, though life and travel do interfere sometimes.

We wish you a very Happy New Year!

We spent a few days at the Festival of Lights at Stephen Foster State Park in White Springs, FL as we do every year. I’ve posted photos in years past, and many of those same lights are still there. Two new ones caught my attention, Reindeer School, above and Santa with a sleigh pulled by that most iconic of Florida reptiles, alligators, below.

Very Happy Holidays to everyone. Karl and I are looking forward to 2024 and continuing our photography and travel. More about that next week…

I often mention our RV trips, starting in 2010 with a very used 10-year old van camper, and after several iterations of other RVs our close to perfect Itasca Reyo 26′ Type A, 12 years old but the ideal vehicle and layout for us. Our usual trips last 14 days or less, and usually involved traveling between a couple of places. We decided it was time to see if we liked living in that 26′ for a longer period of time. So, we left October 8 and explored mid-south Georgia for a month, planning to stay at least a week in each place. In spite of a tow car breakdown requiring us to slightly re-arranging our travel plans by a few days just one week out we found it a comfortable way to travel and live. Midnight, our initially reluctant traveling cat, seemed quite at home this trip, even she liked the new relaxed pace and adapted well to living in the RV.

Of course this meant much more initial planning than usual since we had family coming into town and had to be back in early November. We give precedence to state and local parks for the natural settings (about what you would expect from two naturalists and nature photographers), but where not available we booked private parks. That led to the discovery of Four County RV Park in Danville, GA. This small, family run park in the country is only 30 minutes from Macon, and we loved it from the start. I walked the pond each morning, and all the photos in this post came from those walks. A hiking trail is under construction along with other improvements. The sites are open for the most part, but spaced, and of course full hook-ups. The couple who own the park are nice and very helpful, and we enjoyed several long conversations with them on the park and their plans for the future.

Short trips will remain a part of our life due to other commitments, but from now on we will be searching for times we can take off and live the nomad life, if only for a month or two.

We both learned the history of Andersonville Prison long ago when studying the U.S. Civil War in school. Nearly 13,000 people died there of disease, exposure, and starvation. The information in the videos and tours describes the conditions from diaries of those who survived. It also puts perspective on this one site; Andersonville’s infamous reputation started even before the war ended, but very poor treatment of POWs during the Civil War happened on both sides. We arrived a little early for the opening of the POW Museum so toured some of the area, then the museum when it opened.

The museum offers two 30 minute videos, playing alternately on the hour and half hour. We watched both and highly recommend them. One is about Andersonville and a good introduction to the two driving tours, the other is about U.S. POWs and interviews people who served and were captured and held, and also reads from diaries from those held in other wars including in Andersonville. The museum contains exhibits of the POW experience from all wars. Both videos, the museum, and the driving tours impressed us. We stayed far longer than we anticipated.

Upon leaving the ranger asked us our opinion. We both searched for the words to describe it. It was a powerful experience being there, knowing what happened, and learning more about the people who endured the experience of prisoners of war. The Ranger said that those emotions are common from people who visit. We both would repeat the experience, and learned a lot.

Early morning and the temperature already reached 77 degrees with some pretty high humidity. Not bad for west central Florida on September 30, well, a few degrees above average but after our record breaking heat during the summer, I’ll take it.

I purposely arrived very early for a class at Brooker Creek Preserve (Tarpon Springs, FL), and spent the time on a leisurely walk on the trails, in spite of feeling warm and sticky as soon as I left the air conditioned car. As to leisurely, the abundance of hungry mosquitoes did increase my pace quite a bit. Carolina chickadees and black and white warblers flitted overhead on the bird trail, two Common yellow-throat warblers flew by landing just long enough for me to get a look, and this Brown Thrasher landed right in front of me as I rejoined the main trail. I hoped for better light this overcast morning, but no such luck.

As to the class, well, I tried for years to teach myself sketching with little progress. Some online courses helped me somewhat, at least my drawings no longer looked like stick figures, but they still lacked any real features and looked awkward. I signed up for two four-hour botanical illustration workshops, and the wonderful instructor did a great job getting me past the really awkward drawings and giving me some confidence. People looked at my drawing and could actually identify it as an American Beauty Berry, though let’s face it, in Autumn in this area they are everywhere and those purple berry clusters are a dead giveaway.

Two weeks ago we visited Silver Springs State Park for the first time in almost two years. We finally managed to get a campsite, and grabbed it. We always camped here often, twice or more a year, but lately getting any campsite proved to be a challenge. Its natural beauty and convenient location to Ocala and The Villages apparently attracts more people now. We went to the main part of the park just at 8 a.m. as it opened. We paid a $2 admission fee, quite low it seemed. We discovered that the glass bottom boats still run, but everything else touristy says under construction.

For us, it didn’t matter, we love walking the park. Unfortunately, the Rhesus monkeys we look forward to seeing were no where to be found. A fellow walker told us he lives locally and visits nearly daily. He often sees the Rhesus, but found on days with lawn care they disappeared from the open areas until the noise abated. Naturally we inadvertently chose a lawn care day.

The trails around the spring remain open and very well kept. A Carolina Wren serenaded us near the “Sea Hunt” dock, then hopped into view. Turtles sunned themselves on a log in the spring, and an Anhinga darted underwater hunting for fish. As we walked through some of the lawn and garden, we disturbed a Red-shouldered hawk, on the lawn in the midst of a flock of White Ibis. As he flew, I tried to take a few shots. I liked this one best, I don’t often get such a good view of the topside of a bird.

People living outside of Florida think of the Pink Flamingo as a common Florida bird. After all, every souvenir shop carries key chains, ornaments, dish towels, etc. with their likeness. In reality, sightings occur mostly in the Everglades, and even a visit to the Everglades does not guarantee seeing one. We heard that one flamingo spent a lot of time at St. Mark’s NWF in northern Florida, arriving several years ago with Hurricane Michael. We visited before and never saw it, though just after Hurricane Idalia a few more had been sighted so we hoped maybe this time. We drove down the road toward the lighthouse, looked to the right, and there he stood alone on the other side of the water, the only bird in sight. There is something special about a pink bird 5 feet tall. We heard of other Flamingo sightings including in Tampa Bay, believed the result of Hurricane Idalia. I’m not sure this one pictured is Pinky, the “original” resident of five years ago, or one of the recent arrivals.

We drove to the lighthouse, and looking to the sky in the east realized with the weather coming in we needed to cut our visit short. We walked around a bit more, then headed out. And yes, we did get to drive though that storm, and it was a strong one.

We really can’t complain, August is hot in central Florida and we’ve lived here for decades so know that. Like July this year, the forecast more regularly calls for near record temperatures. We get out early for a walk or a run, then do any outside work before retreating indoors.

Our July program “Nature Photography with Any Camera” attracted an audience of about 40 people. We went over our time with the program, and then another half hour at least answering individual questions and showing features on cameras. We loved it, and hope the people who spent part of their Saturday with us went away with some good ideas. We also volunteered a few times as Gallery Docents for the art show in the auditorium gallery.

The Wildflower garden, directly outside the doors, attracted a lot of butterflies so I spent my breaks trying out various cameras and settings. The shot above was taken with a Panasonic Lumix FZ300, a “super-zoom” camera lightweight enough to slip into a small bag along with my mobile phone. The two now serve as my “take everywhere because you never know where a photo opportunity may present itself” cameras. One of the people attending our program told Karl that this type of camera is being marketed as the bridge between mobile phone or classic point and shoot cameras and the heavier and more expensive SLRs. I am working with all the various settings on mine, and testing its strengths and limits. I actually read part of the manual! Midnight the cat is a semi-willing subject for testing as long as I don’t disturb her nap too much.

Summer in July in west central Florida is hot and humid, always. So far this year, it managed to be just a little more hot, and a little more humid than usual. The heat dome which the rest of the south and parts of the midwest experienced effected us, though our temperatures did not rise as high. We kept our outdoor activity to early mornings and later evenings during those times. Even then, the still air weighed so heavy with moisture you felt the pressure of it just stepping out the door.

This Sunday morning I took an early walk to the river. Starting just before dawn, I heard rather than saw a lot of birds already up and around. I didn’t see another person until my walk back. A yellow-crowned night heron, a familiar neighborhood resident, stood on the rocks watching me carefully. I walked on the other side of the path to cause as little disturbance as possible.

Standing near the point, I saw ripples in the river. I expected to see an otter, and followed the ripples back and forth. Suddenly to my right I saw a dolphin fin appear briefly, then back under. Excited, I waited for another sighting but due to the tannin color of the water could not follow the dolphin visually. Still, that was quite the excitement for a quiet Sunday morning walk.

I took these photos on a mid-range Samsung phone. I rarely take phone photos as I usually have a SLR or point and shoot zoom camera with me, but so many people use them and want to use them as their primary camera Karl and I get questions all the time. After much prodding from friends, I am learning what I can and cannot do in my range of nature photography using the phone. Any suggestions are very welcome!

All the surrounding birds stood in the water, fishing. The sudden appearance of the second bird, the subsequent “dance” and then following one another away took me by surprise. It was beautiful, I did get a couple of shots, but mostly I just watched.

The second part of June here in west central FL felt more like August with higher than usual humidity and toward the end some of the higher temperatures from the system west of us. We usually get it gradually, and can adapt so when August arrives the shock to the system is less. We will be doing our annual nature photography class/presentation at Brooker Creek Preserve in July, but due to the early arrival of the August heat it will be all classroom.