3-5-24 Venice Rookery

 First a few pics from our time at the beach Sunday night when we went to see and hear and smell (the marijuana) of the drumming circle.  We also watch the sunset in the clouds.  I will attempt to put on a short video of the drumming first.

This morning was slightly overcast, but the sun burned through quite early and we took a ride down to the Venice Rookery. The birds were looking for mates or nesting on the island.  We even spotted a few babies.  We saw great egrets, a morph of a great egret, little blue heron, great blue heron, anhinga, mourning dove, blue jay, black-crowned night heron, a flock of glossy ibis, turkey vulture, and common gallinule.  We then went into the town of Venice (a charming and larger version of Mystic) and did a bit of window shopping although Cathie did find two sundresses.  We ate at lunch at Abbys on Miami - delicious!  The last pic I took was a mural of sand hill cranes just in case we don't see one in real life.  Back on Siesta Key Dave took a nap, Cathie read on the couch while Susanne, Russ and I took our books down to the canal and sat in the shade to read.  We went to dinner tonight at Walt's Fish House where we again had fantastic meals.  On the way home we stopped at Detwiler's to stock up on more fruit and a few other items.  Tomorrow we have several plans in mind depending on the weather.  It is supposed to be a rainy day, but so far this week each day has been better than predicted.

3-4-24 Siesta Key Beach

Today was another cloudy and gray morning, but we looked at the forecast and took a chance that the sun would come out.  Fortune shown upon us - we got to the beach and donned our sweatshirts and covered our legs with beach towels to stay warm.  We even had a short sprinkle, but then around 10:30 the sun came out and we had a gorgeous beach day.  We spent some time watching the beach walkers, the brown pelicans dive-bombing for their breakfast, the men with metal detectors sweeping the beach as well as the shallow water near shore.  As the sun warmed us, we peeled off the outer layers and applied our sunscreen.  The police on horseback were again patrolling the beach - and again they drew a crowd.  The water temperature was 67 today and the air temp must have been close to 80.  We finally left around 1 as it was getting a bit toasty.  We came back to do a variety of things - read poolside, laundry, read inside in the air conditioning, spent some time in the gym.  We will grill burgers tonight for dinner and then walk down for ice cream.  No pics today, but should have some tomorrow as we plan on visiting the Venice rookery which we discovered two years ago.  No cards last night.  We will get back into it Thursday night.

3-3-24 Celery Fields

 As promised I am posting two pictures of plants we saw yesterday - Indian blanket and scarlet sage.

We played one game of cards last night and the boys won so now we stand at 5 to 5.

This morning Russ went for a run.  The skies were overcast and he even ran through a few sprinkles on the way home.  After everyone had showered and had breakfast we went to the store to pick up a few items.  We went to the airport to pick up our friend Susanne who flew down from Mystic to join us for a few days.  Back at the condo we had a light lunch and then Dave went in for his nap while the rest of us went to Celery Fields.  We saw  rabbit, mocking bird, red-winged blackbirds, grackles, boat-tailed grackles, white ibis, glossy ibis, little green heron, anhinga, pie-billed grebe, blue-winged teal, mourning dove, great egret, osprey, common gallinule, coot, big red-eared sliders, tricolored heron, purple martins, little blue heron, cattle egret and turkey vultures.  On the last boardwalk where we stopped we chatted with a couple. who had seen a roseate spoonbill fly in.  We have not yet seen one one this trip.  I am sorry we missed it.  

We will go to The Cottage for dinner tonight and then watch the sunset from the beach and introduce Susanne to the Sunday night drumming entertainment

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3-2-24 Robinson Preserve

 We played two games last night and each team won one so the tally is now 4 to 3 with the girls in the lead.

We drove up to Robinson's Preserve this morning and met our friend Kelly (Lana's daughter).  We had a lovely walk - the sky was overcast which made for a slightly cool walk - perfect for us!  We had a great time taking pics of the birds.  It is so nice to get together with Kelly when we get down this way as she shares our love of walking and taking pictures of nature.  On our walk we saw white ibis, lesser yellow legs, osprey, a yellow-crowned night heron, little blue heron, mottled ducks, a common gallinule, both black and turkey vultures (one pic is a whole tree full of vultures), many American white pelicans, assorted small shore birds, mocking bird, cardinal, a juvenile white ibis, a morph little blue heron, a tricolored heron (spotted by Russ and Cathie walking back from the bathroom), mourning dove, great egret, blue-winged teals, and several female lesser scaup.  There is also a pic of what Kelly calls a Florida ice berg (floating sea foam).  We saw several wildflowers which I will post tomorrow as Cathie has the app to identifying them on her phone.  We drove done the road and ate  lunch at Compass Bar and Grill.  We had a delightful waiter from England and New Zealand who took our pic before we left.  Russ and I went out to the pool area to read, but it got a bit chilly so we came in.  Cathie and Dave are still napping.

3-1-24 Oscar Scherer State Park

 Our one-pot meal was delish especially accompanied by salad and a fresh baguette last night.  There are even some left overs for tonight.  We went down the street for ice cream - Dave had raspberry sorbet, Russ had key lime ice cream and Cathie and I had salted caramel ice cream - after a small taste of each of the others, the salted caramel was dynamite!  The girls ruled at cards last night so the tally is 4 to 3.

It was very overcast this morning, but warm.  We went down to Oscar Scherer State Park and had a very long walk without a lot of bird activity.  We were hoping to see eagles and scrub jays, but no luck.  We also wanted to see if the very large alligator that we saw here two years ago was still hanging out, but again we missed out.  We did see a Northern shrike sitting on top of a dead tree (a first for us this year), little blue heron, great egret, red-bellied woodpecker, black vulture, boat-tailed grackle, palm warbler, mottled ducks, an unidentified hawk, mourning dove, and a wood stork flying overhead.  We also saw two new plants - the yellow trumpet flower and Texas blue bonnets.

We drove north to a mall to pick up some glasses that Cathie had ordered from Warby Parker before Dave and I arrived.  The mall was enormous, but there were lots of upscale stores (Dotty Jo, you would have been in heaven).  We then went across the street to Ford's Garage for lunch.  There was a 1926 Model A parked out front.  The napkins were blue mechanic rags with a band clamp used as a napkin ring.  The meals were very good and we brought back 2 takeaway boxes to add to our leftovers for dinner tonight.