A Round-About Trip to Jacksonville

Not long after the trip to St. Augustine's rookery, friend Karen and I took a trip up north to Jacksonville and Amelia Island, as it turned out…there are several birding sites along the way and we made several stops to check things out. Overall I'm sorry to say I was disappointed, but we did get an eyeful of nature…

Just no male painted buntings like I was hoping...

My favorite shot of the day was this laughing gull at Huguenot Memorial Park…

(Just look at that saucy red lipstick!)

A gulf fritillary …. uh, somewhere…

We saw this cottontail on the trail to Boneyard Beach on Big Talbot Island...

The beach had a lot of "driftwood"…more like dead trees, hence the name…not a common sight in FL…

(Decided to do this shot in B&W, didn't like the colors)….

Seeing jellyfish washed ashore isn't so rare, however…but then again, seeing one in one piece isn't so common, for me at least…

Also saw this interesting hollow tree….

On a path to Amelia Island Beach, we encountered this baby gopher tortoise…it was marching along, stopping briefly to eat along the way...

Meanwhile, closer to home…near Flagler Beach, we saw this pileated woodpecker near the boardwalk that goes to the Intra Coastal Waterway…might be the same one I saw last time I was there...

I'd never noticed fiddler crabs before, below the boardwalk in the marsh muck…Karen pointed them out to me. Don't think I'd ever seen a fiddler crab before! (If memory serves me right, which is highly debatable, I'm sorry to say.)

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Back at home, the avian nursery work has been in full swing…this pops was gathering grub around my hydrangea bush...

Mayme I canph stuff oneph phore fug in myph mouph...

Iguana See an Anhinga

We liked Long Key Natural Area enough the first time

To make another visit,

And managed to find different critters

To take a gander at...

I was pretty excited to discover this male (or imm.) anhinga sunning...

It tolerated my presence pretty well...

At a slightly different angle, I was able to pick up the reflections in the water...

Hubby spied this iguana hanging by the pond...

These guys are escaped/released ex-pets, can be seen

Along canals and other bodies of water,

Regardless of the human population...

Hubby also spied an atala hairstreak butterfly...

There were gulf fritillaries about the little butterfly garden also...

I believe this is a red-bellied turtle

(As noted in previous post)...

Seemed to be swimming over to greet me,

But he just kept swimming under the bridge.

Up in the trees, I could hear a couple different birds twittering, but it was pretty hard to make out what they were they were so busy flitting about...I managed to capture a black-and-white warbler as it pecked at the bark for a moment before moving again. This warbler was a lifer for me!