February 25: Corkscrew Swamp

Today was another Corkscrew Swamp day. We bought annual passes on our first visit and as of today's visit we have more than broken even. We chose to go in the morning this time and noticed that there are a lot more bird noises in the morning!

The big excitement of the day was this Purple Gallinue. Ron says they are more common on the east coast of Florida but it was causing a lot of attention today. It is beautiful.

How slow do you have to be walking for leaves to fall on you?

Joyce's first swimming alligator! Smooth, silent, and not that slow! It was fun to watch the birds in the area decide it was time to move into a tree as the alligator approaches.

You, the dedicated fans of this blog, have seen Anhingas before but this one is so cool with its reflection.

Here's another alligator, a youngster this time. He looked about two feet long which means he about two years old. He was just laying on a log in the sun, how trite!

That concludes the fauna portion of our blog and we can move on to the flora (Joyce thinks). Above is a golden lichen growth -- is that flora or something else?

This is one of the few colorful bits in the swamp.

And lastly, Joyce doesn't think this is flora or fauna, she thinks fungus might be it's own thing. If she's wrong, let her know, gently.

February 23: RV Repair Day

On Thursday afternoon we got a call that the parts were in and they were ready to complete the repairs on our RV on Friday! That means putting everything away, closing up everything, and heading out by 6:30 a.m. to get to Our Family RV by 8:00! We got there 20 minutes early.

While the work was being done, we went out to breakfast at Perkins and then to a park to sit in the car in the shade, listen to a short (three hour) recorded book, and snooze! When the sun moved, so did we, to another park where we could park in the shade under a bridge and listen to the end of the story.


During our first visit to Our Family RV, Joyce took a bunch of photos of shells and coral at the Shell Factory. This time she rocked her seat back and shot the bottom of the bridge through the open read window of the car. She suffers for her art.

February 19: Fort Myers Camera Club

On Monday we went to the Fort Myers Camera Club for Joyce's first competition there. This was a projection competition which means that the images were shown as slides. There are two divisions: Advanced and Novice. Joyce is in novice as she is new to competition. The images of the two divisions are shown commingled but the points are tallied separately.

There are three categories: Assignment, General, and Nature. The Assignment was Doors and Windows. Joyce entered the two images shown here. The upper one is from Far View House in Mesa Verde National Park. It won First Place (tied)!

This one is from Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. It also won First Place (tied) -- I tied with myself!

In the General Category Joyce entered the above photo called "Inside the Strawberry" from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. It won Second Place.

This one is also from the Balloon Fiesta. It won Third Place!

In the Nature Category Joyce entered the photo above of a tree at Dead Horse Point in Utah. It won First Place!

This is her other entry in Nature and is from Mesa Falls in Idaho. It only won Honorable Mention. In case you haven't been counting, three images at Naples with three winners and six images at Fort Myers with six winners. Joyce could say she's not bragging, just reporting the facts, but let's face it: She's bragging!

February 17: Corkscrew Swamp

We made our second visit to Corkscrew Swamp. It was about the same time of day, late afternoon. They close at 5:30 and one doesn't dawdle -- they tend to lock things up tight!

This Anhinga was swimming through the water and caught a tasty morsel. Note the tail of the bird with the white tips on the feathers.

This is an unusual one of these. This variety is from Cuba. Or so said the lady on the boardwalk who pointed it out to me.

And this little cutey is called the Little Green Heron -- for obvious reasons!? It is small and nearly disappears when it is not right in the sunlight.

February 16: Fort Myers Beach Art Association

On Friday we were back at the Art Association in Fort Myers Beach. We needed to put stickers on the backs of our photos.

In our haste to get the photos up for the judging we forgot to put our name stickers on the back and they were needed so that anyone working with the entries would know whose was whose (and we were the only ones without stickers!).

The top photo shows Joyce's White Pelican on the wall. The middle photo has both Ron's mostly green Sun in the Redwoods and Joyce's Half Dome.

This bottom photo has Ron's photo from Bryce. None of the photos shown won anything -- it was a tough competition.

February 14: Valentine's Day

We are such hopeless romantics (well, at least we are hopeless!). On Valentine's Day we got up at 6 a.m. to break camp and drive to an RV place in North Fort Myers to get some warranty issues reviewed. We were there by 8 and done with the paperwork by 8:30. That left us with all day to fill. We went to a Perkins restaurant for a leisurely breakfast and then visited the Shell Factory, a major tourist attraction.

As we got out of the car, Ron suggested to Joyce that she bring her camera into the store. What a great idea that turned out to be! She merrily took pictures of coral, such as the brown stem shown above.


And pictures of shells such as the ones above and below. She had such a good time, she wants to do it again and has been thinking of techniques to try.

Then we drove around for a while. Ron remembered where some osprey had been nesting so we drove there. The exact place he remembered doesn't have birds right now (probably thanks to hurricanes) but there were others within a block or so.

This pair (mom's head can just be seen on the left) have a nest on a common nesting platform. Ospreys are not genius nest builders and these platforms give them a solid base for their nests.

Just a few hundred yards from the first pair was this second pair, building their nest the old fashioned way -- in a tree.

Then we drove a little more in the area and found a pond with lots of birds around it: Great egrets, lots of ibis, a blue heron or two, and these wood storks.

Wood storks are endangered and a look at this (fuzzy) close-up shows that the animals are not the most handsome around. The warranty issues are proceeding and we will undoubtedly be back for more work on the motorhome and more pictures of shells and osprey.

February 12: Naples Camera Club

Tuesday was the Naples Camera Club meeting (we belong to both the Naples and the Fort Myers clubs). This was the first time that Joyce had participated in a projected image competition. The Naples club has one print competition and one projected competition per month. Projected means both slides from film and image files from digital. There are three categories: Nature (no "hand of man" can show -- so no bird on a fence post, for example), general (hand of man shows), and assignment, which changes each competition.

This month the special assignment was "Flora, new and old shown together" -- a subject for which Ron had no images and Joyce tried a couple while down at Corkscrew Swamp. The image above is what she submitted: A new fiddlehead fern unfurling in front of mature fronds. Ron asked "Where's the old one?" to which Joyce pointed out the old ones are blurred. She arrived at the conclusion they were too blurred when the man in front of her at the club meeting asked the same question to his companion when the image was projected. It won Honorable Mention anyway but there wasn't much competition, only about eight images total.

The nature category had more like 18 or 20 competitors and Ron's Lower Yellowstone Falls with Rainbow and Joyce's Half Dome tied for second place!

The general category competition also had plenty of entries and Joyce's Balloon Glow won Fourth Place and Ron's Mesa Verde image was tied with two others for Fifth Place.

Shall we summarize? Joyce: Honorable Mention, Second Place (tie), and Fourth Place. Ron: Second Place (tie) and Fifth Place (tie). Every image we submitted won something! Not a bad showing for the family.

February 13: Look! Eagles!

So, Ron was doing laundry (he brought the car with him) and Joyce was puttering around the house. While glancing out the window she noticed more than the usual number of people looking up in the trees (usually it's not more three or four people at a time casually glancing to the trees). Finally Joyce couldn't stand it anymore and went out to investigate.

Well, it turns out that two bald eagles, one mature with a white head and one immature still in brown feathers, had been overhead fighting over a fish. During the fight the fish fell out of their grip and landed about 35 feet from my front door! The crowd was watching the two eagles who were now perched in the trees, presumably waiting for people to go away so they could swoop down and get the fish (shown below).

Joyce would have run for her camera with the telephoto zoom lens, but it was in the car. Ron's big Nikon D200 was in the motorhome so she ran and got that and proceeded through a number of very frustrating minutes because she couldn't get the thing to work. Remembering the battery charger was on the counter, Joyce sprinted to the motorhome again and grabbed the battery that was indeed charging. But still no luck making the camera work. While she gave up on the Nikon and ran for the little camera she carries in her purse, the mature eagle finally took off, circled a few times, and went to look for one of the many other fishes in the ocean.

This immature eagle was still waiting for the crowd to clear.

Occasionally the neck would stick out and the head would turn sideways, probably for a better look at the fish on the ground.

Eventually the second eagle gave up, too, and flew off. When Ron got home Joyce (a) confessed to pressing a lot of buttons on his camera in what became a rather random pattern after a while and (2) asked for a lesson in how to make the dang thing work so as to be prepared for the next photographic emergency!

February 8: Collier County Fair

Here's a sampling of what we've been doing:

We visited the Collier County Fair tonight. They don't have exhibits of fruits and vegetables but they did have a giant sand castle with many different things carved into it, including fruits and vegetables.

The midway had lots of rides including spinning dragons with children inside.

And swings twirling the children into a frenzy. We didn't go on any rides but we did have a great time with a couple of pinball machines (we were the oldest in the arcade by far). We also watched the pig races. We are pig racing fans, having watched the races in two states now.

We visit Wal-Mart fairly often, we are RVers after all. We especially enjoy the huge savings that are on offer. This one was perhaps a little overly truthful: Was $1.50 but now it's $1.50!

One of our favorite restaurants is Sonny's Real Pit Barbeque. The pictures above and below were taken there. They are fuzzy because neither of us sees that clearly! And besides, we look better with a little "glamour blur." (Joyce apparently went blind and has her nose in a splint!)

February 2: Corkscrew Swamp

Today's adventure was our first visit to Corkscrew Swamp, an Audubon conservation area. Here are some of the things we saw as we walked the boardwalk.

This little cutie is an immature ibis. Doesn't he even look like a teenager?

This is a mature yellow crowned night heron. We saw an immature one at Ding Darling. There were at least half a dozen of these birds sitting in various trees.

This was so cool! This is an anhinga and we got to watch it swimming as it searched for food. And it was catching things quite often. The water is shallow so we could see it "flying" under water and every so often just its head and neck popped up for air. Fascinating!

The little pie-billed grebes don't get as much attention with all the flashier birds about.

The vegetation is just as interesting as the wildlife.

Nearly every bloom I leaned over to study came complete with spiderwebs.

The turtles were sunning on a log in a pond-like area of the swamp.

This is a beautiful shot of a flying ibis so you know it is Ron's.

This little woodpecker was pecking away. He is small, maybe five inches top of head to tip of tail. He moved around a lot so he was difficult photograph.

February 1: Ding Darling Ditto

We ran some errands and dined at Sonny's Real Pit BBQ for lunch. Our errands included picking a spot to live in April. It's expensive here in Florida ($1,050 per month!) but we have a big discount offer for April and/or May of $169 plus electric. That should drop our average cost per night some. We could have stayed right where we are but we are planning to move to a sister resort called The Groves in Fort Myer. It will be back to The Groves for Ron, he lived there for a couple of years previously!

A loyal reader who shall remain nameless but whose initials are "Heide" asked about Ding's nickname. Here's a quote from his biography by David L. Lendt: Darling signed his creations D'ing, a contraction of his last name. "The apostrophe stood for the 'arl' which were left out in order to make a funnier looking signature and in addition to conceal my identity," Darling explained. The name had been used by his father and by his brother Frank before him.

We visited Ding Darling again. This time we found a Snowy Egret having a bad hair day.

The Blue Heron looks as if it were photographed with a flash, but it wasn't. The sun was getting low and caused this lighting.

Joyce is not good at in-flight pictures. She blames her camera. Ron is good at it but when Joyce gets one, she wants to post it. Hence this Brown Pelican flies into the blog.

Ever wonder what it looks like when a White Pelican yawns? It's a pretty scary sight! This pelican tipped his head back and opened his mouth. The membrane in his lower jaw is so thin, you can almost see through it.

The White Pelicans are the largest birds in the Refuge (and the second largest wingspan among U.S. birds following the Condor) and the Snowy Egret is not the smallest, but it sort of looks that way. Later we attended the Audubon lecture series featuring nature photography. [Just for the record, one woman recognized Ron at the RV park and another at Ding Darling, plus the couples he (and I) know from the camera club -- I can't take him anywhere!]