April 03rd, 2023

Thursday, Joy and I headed out on Photo Safari to a small local preserve called, Curry Creek Preserve.  I had just read an article in the newspaper about how several area preserves have recently acquired additional land and Curry Creek was one of them. We were excited to see this new part of the preserve.

As it turns out, while the article was correct, it will be awhile before we can actually walk trails in the additions, darn it.  But I suppose that's something else to look forward to somewhere else down the line.  Consequently, we expected to see the same sorts of perfectly lovely things that we always see there. Not exciting but absolutely fine.  Good thing we didn't bet on it, because we would have lost!

The birdie above it called a Swallow Tail Kite.  They spend fall and winter in South America somewhere and then, along about March, they come to Florida to build their nests and start their families.    Joy and I saw our first Kites are few years back and honestly, we weren't absolutely certain at first what we even saw. We just knew what it wasn't.  It wasn't an Eagle and it wasn't a Hawk or an Osprey though it was clearly a large predator bird. We talked it over and thought...maybe a Kite?  We had heard about them, but had never seen one.  We later confirmed with the experts that our guess - Kite - was correct (and then we cheered that we had seen new to us bird and had identified it correctly).  Yay us!   

​And then we didn't see another one for quite some time.

We had never seen one at Curry Creek.  Until last Thursday.  And wow!  Not just the Kite, but the kite in a nest!  Whoa!  And then we topped that excitement by seeing the male Kite bringing more nesting material and delivering it!  Seriously, if you look closely, you can see Spanish Moss in his talons.  It was so very cool.

I suspect that one of the reasons we rarely see Kites is that they are so very quiet.  Osprey and Hawks are such noisy birds.  They are always screaming about one thing or another.  Kites, on the other hand, are silent.  I've never heard a single sound out of them.  Also they are always up very high, either flying or perched in the tops of trees. I tend to look either at the ground (so I don't trip over anything) or I'm scanning at relative eye level all around us.  

It was really exciting to see something new to us :)  Which means this Photo Safari will be called the Kite Hike in their honour.  

The rest of the hike, while absolutely wonderful, bordered on ordinary.  I will share some of of the other bird photos I got:

Some pretty flowers, always :

A few rando's wouldn't go amiss right about now:

But without question, the stars of this particular show was the Kites. I know, I know, I'm starting to sound like my hobby is birds!  My hobby is not birds. My hobby is hiking and taking pictures.  But it's extra fun when the subject of the photographs taken while hiking, are of something unusual.

​Hope you enjoyed the Kites Hike and shared at least a little of our excitement!