March 23: Jungle Garden in Sarasota

The main reason we went to Sarasota was to attend a two-day weekend lecture series by George Lepp. For those of you who don't know who he is (and Joyce was one of them), he's a very famous photographer. If you have seen those fabulous photos Cannon uses in their ads for their cameras and printers, you have seen his work.


We drove up on Friday and stopped at Jungle Gardens, Sarasota's version of a zoo. The place smacks of a tourist trap that's gone straight, probably many years ago.




The ducks are considered more exotic here than they are in the Northwest.

The parrots and similar foreign birds are displayed for close examination. You can even pose with one sitting on you if you want to (we didn't want to).



The gardens are very old so the plants are huge. There are a few animals in cages, but the big attraction for us is the birds. Among these the flamingos are very popular.

The snowy egret shares his log with a few turtles in the largest of the ponds.

The white peacock was parading about near the snack bar with his tail spread.

The tail was interesting all by itself.

The pelicans were whacking the water with their wings.

We don't have a photo of the flamingo that goosed Joyce but here's one of a flamingo checking out Ron's armpit. This is apparently flamingo sign language for "hey, buddy, can you spare some of that bird food?"