Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Birds, birds, birds

Back in February we visited a few wetland parks over on the east coast of Florida. These pictures were taken at the Orlando Wetlands, Viera Wetlands and another wetland at the north entrance to Merritt Island, but now I can't remember the name of it or find it on the map. These wetlands were created by reclaimed wastewater that is filtered into ponds.

I'll post just a few pictures here. You can see more here.

The picture above is a red shouldered hawk at the Orlando Wetlands.


Great blue heron and a night heron.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Gatorland isn't just for gators


Gatorland (near Orlando) is one of EB's favorite places, especially in the winter when there are lots of migratory birds and in the early spring when there are lots of baby birds.

I'll post just a few pictures here, but you can see lots more by clicking on the title link above.











Ospreys


Wow. We've woefully neglected this blog for the past six months . . . mostly because we haven't been traveling. BUT there are lots and lots of wonderful things to take pictures of right here in Florida. Especially birds. So I will try to catch us up and show you some of Florida's birds.

Here are a couple of osprey pictures taken at Lake Lochloosa near Cross Creek, which is right up the road from where we are staying in Orange Lake, Florida (near Gainesville).

Ospreys are also known as fish hawks because they always live near water and eat mostly fish. They build huge nests in the top of dead trees and a good number of pairs can be found in this part of Florida.

You may know Cross Creek because that is where the author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings lived and wrote ("Cross Creek" and "The Yearling" are her most well known novels.).

You can see more ospreys by clicking on the title link above.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Kosovo


No, we didn't take the motorhome to Kosovo. But that's where our youngest son, Mike, has been for the last year. He is an MP in the Army K-9 unit deployed on a UN peacekeeping mission out of Italy.

You can see pictures he has taken of the Kosovo countryside and Kosovo children here.

That is Mike being hoisted up into a Mevac helicopter with his dog, Allan, during a training mission recently.