3-15-24 Ken Thompson Park, St. Armands Circle and Outdoor Art Show

 Last night we played cards and the boys won again.  No matter what happens tonight, the boys rule for this season!

This morning we rode out to Ken Thompson Park hoping for another look at a spoonbill, but no luck.  We did see osprey, crows,  black-headed gulls, a little blue heron and a red-bellied woodpecker.  On one of the piers there were a lot of padlocks attached to the siding.  It reminded me of the "bridges of love" we saw in Europe.  We parked on St. Armands Circle and did some window shopping in this high-end area.  There were several stores that are also in Mystic, Watch Hill and Newport.  In the center green space there are many statues.  We saw a Wyland Gallery.  He is the artist who painted the whale wall in New London and many other cities around the world,  They are having a gala tonight where he will be present.  One of his pieces of a turtle painted in a porthole was selling for $12000, but a limited and numbered edition copy is available tonight only for the special price of $5000.  I think we will not be attending.  On our way back to Siesta Key we stopped at the waterfront park in Sarasota where they were showing billboard sized art work submitted by school children.  This year's theme was "Embracing Our Differences".  I have included a few of my favorites.  We will go to The Cottage for dinner tonight and finish our packing.  It has been a fantastic three weeks.  I think I will have to put away my shorts and bathing suit for a few months though.  

3-14-24 Robinson Preserve

 Walt's was delish as usual last night.  Cathie and I split the crab cakes dinner so that we wouldn't pile up leftovers at the end of our trip.  We came back to play cards and UGH! -the boys won again - 12 to 9 in their favor,  So again the boys have prevailed.

Happy pi day!  We have been revisiting our favorite places this week so we drove up to Robinson Preserve,  Unfortunately we couldn't start our walk at our usual place as they were doing a controlled burn so we drove down the road to a different parking place and walked near the big lake.  What a difference a week and a half makes!  When we were there with Kelly there were 75 to 100 white pelicans on the island.  Today there were six.  Apparently they migrate to Western Canada and the lakes of the Northwest US to nest and have their chicks.  They come back to Florida in October or November.  We did see a decent number of birds though: great egret, tricolored heron, snowy egret, roseate spoonbill, red-shouldered hawk, sandpiper and other assorted small shore birds, anhinga, white ibis, turkey vulture, cardinal, mocking bird, palm warbler and the ever elusive reddish egret, which was a great find!

We had a quick lunch at Wicked Cantina and then read down by the inter-coastal waterway and enjoyed the breeze.  We will go out for a small bite tonight and then stop for our last ice cream treat.  

3-13-24 Venice Rookery

We played two games last night and the boys won both so the score is 11 to 9 in their favor.

We drove down to Venice Rookery again this morning.  It is such an amazing place!  This time we saw great blue heron chicks - two different sizes in different nests, great egret chicks and eggs and cormorant chicks.  We also saw an immature little blue heron (which is white in color), anhingas, black-crested night heron, white and glossy ibis, a wood stork flying overhead, red-winged blackbird, purple martins, common gallinule and a turtle swimming across the lake. A woman who live in the area told us about a place called Circle B Bar Reserve, but we looked it up and it is 2 hours away so we won't be going there this trip.  We came back to have lunch and read by the pool.  We are going out to Walt's for dinner and Robinson Preserve tomorrow to meet up with some friends of Russ and Cathie.  Time is running short, but we have had a marvelous time here.

3-12-24 Siesta Key Beach

 We played two games last night and the boys won both so now we are tied 9 to 9.

We went to the beach this morning so there are no pics for the blog.  It was chilly when we first got there, but after taking a walk and waiting for the sun to warm up the sand, it turned out to be a beautiful beach day.  We met some nice people sitting near us who were from Toronto.  They were interested in seeing the painted bunting in real life so we told them about Celery Fields.  We stayed until about 1:30 and came home to shower and do our last loads of laundry before we head home on Saturday.  We made dinner at home as Cathie has a Zoom meeting at 6.  The rest of us will walk down to the docks to watch for dolphins.

3-11-24 Celery Fields

Before dinner, we watched a video of the speech Larry Wilson gave to the Mystic River Historical Society.  Russ grew up with Larry and I knew him when he was a kid.  The boys grilled the grouper and we had quite a feast.  We played one game of cards last night and the boys won in the last round so now the girls are up 9 to 7.  We then watched a bit of the Oscars before going to bed.

It was cold and windy when we woke up this morning. Russ and I went to the beach to look for the reddish heron which we heard had been seen there recently, but we only saw gulls and shore birds and it was too cold to stay long so we came back to the condo.  We decided to ditch plans for the beach and went to Celery Fields instead.  We were lucky and spotted the elusive painted bunting!  I only got shots of him on the feeder as he doesn't land on the ground for long.  We also saw red-winged blackbirds, nan-day parakeets, brown-headed cowbirds, a red-bellied woodpecker, grackles, bluejay, cardinal, house finch, purple gallinule, common gallinule, glossy and white ibis, red-shouldered hawk, osprey, harrier, cattle egret, blue-winged teal, boat-tail grackles, mocking bird, purple martins, tree swallow, black-necked stilt, gray-headed swamp hen, roseate spoonbill, great egret, tricolored heron and turkey vultures.  Just as we were leaving, we saw a great blue heron catch a large fish.  If you look carefully at the last pic you can spot the bird in the heron's beak.  In addition to birds, we spotted gators, a large soft-shelled turtle and a tilapia.  We had a successful morning and came back to the condo for lunch.  Russ and I went to the pool to read.  We will have leftovers for dinner tonight.