Circle B Bar Reserve
We spent a day walking through this nature reserve with our new friends, Jeri Lynn and Rick. They had hiked there before and loved the wildlife. Our first bird was this beautiful Hawk (Red Shouldered Hawk?) who posed nicely for us.
Plenty of animals hang out at the Circle B… including this little Armadillo, lots of Turtles, and even a few Raccoons.
A female Cormorant dries her wings. Cormorants and Anhingas are often seen in this pose, drying their wings. They don’t have water repellent oil on their wings like a duck does, which lets them dive much deeper, but then they have to dry out after a dive.
Here’s a Great Blue Heron getting ready to spear a fish.
On the left you see a Great Egret, a Turtle, and an Alligator all sharing the same log. I’m not sure if Gators eat turtles, but if I were the turtle, I’d look for another place to catch the sun. (He did shortly after the picture)
Another Heron and Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks. We saw lots of these, and they make lots of noise, but we never heard them whistling!
Gators can blend in pretty well.
Pied Billed Grebe: (I told my kids I identified this one posthumously… I looked him up long after I’d shot him)
For some reason the Wood Stork reminds me of Jimmy Durante! Our young friends didn’t know who that was… If you do, smile and let me know – if you don’t, you could look him up.
I think this is a juvenile Wood Stork must have just heard a good joke!
Great Egret
Osprey on a distant tree:
The windmill says it’s from Beatrice, Nebraska. Who’d have thought?
Some of the path was paved, most was dirt.
Jeri Lynn and Rick showed us a great hike!
John B. Sargent Park (again)
We enjoyed a twin tandem kayak trip with our long-time friends Jeff and Marilyn. We’d seen thousands of birds here on our first trip, and this time there were far fewer… but it was still beautiful.
This Little Blue Heron apparently can fluff up his feathers if he wants to impress someone. Like us.
Another Great Blue Heron:
Here is a turtle, almost ready to take off!
Another laughing bird and a short necked one.
It’s hard not to take pictures of the alligators! Especially when they are less than 30 feet away…
… and look like they are swimming towards you… (OK, this guy wasn’t moving, but still…)
Good to be with good friends!
Twin Turtles
Is it serious when you see a sign like this mid-river, and a Turkey Vulture nearby watching? Na… on we went! We did decide we’d turn around if we reached a portage spot.
This is the guy in the top right of the picture set above. He wasn’t really following us with his head, but it felt like it! We had to get pretty close to his log – I was hoping he wasn’t too territorial!
As we got out of the area with all the ‘Gators, my camera battery gave out. (Fear makes batteries fail faster!) Since I can’t go anywhere without shooting pictures, I pulled the GoPro out of the dry bag and shot a little video. No more ‘Gators, not even many birds, just pretty nature and a peaceful paddle (pedal?)