January 28th, 2022

This week Photo Safari day ended up being a Thursday and my goodness we made up for the past two hikes with few photographs! It was Awesome!  Without a second's hesitation I dub this the Lotta Birds Hike because that is mostly what we found.  Birds! Lots and  Lots and LOTS of birds!  So I hope you like pictures of birds coz that's mostly what I have for you today.

Our little feathered friends were everywhere around us.  It was hard to know where to begin but we started at the gazebo.  We were hiking at Celery Fields in Sarasota  a place that has, not only, cleverly crated a place to attract birds but also an enormous variety of them. And with that in mind they have laid out quite a few different birdie environments. Wooded areas, fields, ponds, channels and streams and a very large garden with a gazebo.

In the area surrounding the gazebo are shrubs, trees and flowers of course but also different sorts of bird feeders and bird baths.  We saw so many different kinds of birds there! We were tippy-toe quiet as we watched and took photo and the birds didn't seem to care that we were in attendance. It was a great start to the hike:

Celergy fields also boats quite a number of different sorts of bird houses. The most heavily populated that we noticed yesterday was filled with a bird called a Purple Martin which is odd because they are actually kind of blue, not purple.  Very Strange.  There was also a bat house that rather startlingly has a large wasp nest in it.  

The gardens of course were beautiful filled with all sorts of flowers that don't seem to mind the more wintery temperatures we are currently enjoying.  But there were also vegetables started and parrots yakyakyaking at us from the trees.  Those guys are so loud!

From there we set out to hike the path which is really a large square filled with fields, ponds, streams and trees. So it's just a matter of asking, how do you prefer your birds?  Do you want them in the trees?  Coz I have birds in trees, shrubs and grasses?

Or would you prefer your birds in the air?  For a change I actually caught a few birds flying by.  For some reason I find it nearly impossible to "track" birds as they whizz by but this time I did.  It doesn't happen very often so hurrah to me!  And I will be honest, they aren't great photos of flying birds but they are birds by golly and they are in the air so it counts!

Or perhaps you are the sort of person that likes to have your birds presented in the water.  Tha'ts just fine, I have that too:

And then of course, as usual, I will finish up with my favourites, the rando shots.  This's and that's that don't really meet any of the previous categories but they certainly appealed to me enough to take the photos, so what the heck, I'll share them with you!

That poor little half frozen bee on the railing I felt so sorry for.  I made my hands into a little fence around him to block the wind and we could tell that he was appreciative because he started moving around a little more. He came closer toward me, but not in a aggressive way at all. Just more curious I think.  I waited until he was warmed up enough to fly somewhere a little more protected and hopefully, was just fine.  

We actually saw 3 different caterpillars but the only photo that came out well was the golden one.  That means we aren't far from our "spring".  Baby green tomatoes, squash blossoms, caterpillars and bees?  Yup a sure sign that spring is on it's way.  

This weekend however, we are supposed to have temps below freezing (unusual for us) and it will be grey and windy and wintery feeling in general. Iguanas will be falling out of trees again! (seriously, it happens!)  So we will be well bundled.  I rummaged around in the utility room and found a bag of gloves and warm scarves.  Yay!  We are Saved!

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed the Lotta Birds hike!  We sure did :)