A week in Myrtle Beach

Well, we are on our way home at last after having a week in Myrtle Beach on our way north.  So, girls, this is your last blog.  Next Monday you are stuck with ME!  I'll try not to make this too long so you can work on getting your books up to date, because that is what we will be looking at next Monday.   

One day in Myrtle Beach, we went to the Ripley's Aquarium, and I took a lot of fish pictures.  Here is a collage of some of them.  I'll also put a few on that I especially liked. 

 What a sad face!

 How would you like to meet this fellow in the ocean?  The shark has a LOT of teeth!

Which end is the head???

 This is actually a Sea Anemone, and it was attached to the glass.  Anemones are actually predatory animals, similar to jellyfish, though they are named for a flower. 

 Who does this little fellow remind you of, Anna and Rylee?

Such a pretty little guy! 

There was an area where you could touch the fish as they swam by, and this tiny little girl was loving it!  Her face lit up with a huge smile every time she touched one! 

I love watching the seahorses!  They are just so cool!  Remember the ones in the Maggie Muggins book girls? 

Another thing I love watching is the Jellyfish.  There were lots of different ones to see, but this was my favorite. 

 Another place we visited - twice - was a place called Brookgreen Gardens, and it started out as a collection of sculptures - usually life-sized- throughout the gardens.  My favorites are the horses. 

 I also sat and had a chat with this fellow! 

 There were also a kazillion flowers in the large gardens!  So pretty! 

A butterfly just happened to come along and sit on one of my favorite flowers! 

 There was a bit of a zoo at this place as well, and we saw a lot of different birds. 

But my favorite was this tiny bluebird who came to visit us as we ate our lunch.  He was completely free. 

This beautiful little horse is a rare breed of horse, native to South Carolina, and is called a Marsh Tacky.  Anna and Riley, see if you can find out where they originated. 

We toured the zoo with a man who was showing some of the animals, feeding them, and talking about them.  This River Otter was enjoying his fish lunch.  

This VERY large alligator and his mate (behind him) were sunning themselves on a lovely warm day.  Alligators have to lie in the sun in order to digest their food.  They do not eat all winter, and are just now being fed again, since they cannot digest in the cold weather. 

Alligators are hatched from eggs, and the two alligators above are the parents of this two-year-old baby. 

 There were several foxes in a large penned area, some of them were gray foxes.  In previous visits we have seen them sleeping in trees, which is kind of surprising.  This red fox is enjoying a snack. 

 This is an injured female eagle, who cannot survive in the wild, and she has laid an egg.  But it is illegal to hatch eagle eggs in captivity, so her egg was replaced by a plastic one.  She doesn't seem to get it! 

Papa eagle has also been injured, and cannot fly.  He sure does look stern, don't you think? 

 There was an informational session with some creatures, including this tiny little Screech Owl.  Anna and Rylee, see if you can find out how big these owls are when full grown like this one. 

We were happy to see this wild turkey in the deer enclosure, though the deer did not come close enough for a picture.  We saw a whole herd of deer moving through the trees, but they didn't come close. 

 Anna and Rylee, I thought you might enjoy seeing a couple of the Lego sculptures.  These deer are life-sized, and all made of Lego.

And this butterfly on a flower was in front of the Butterfly House, which wasn't open when we were there the fist day, but was  opened for the season 2 days later.  Since our tickets were good for a week, we went back!  But it was a rainy, and even a thunder-stormy day. 

 The butterflies were not very active, but this was a very pretty one called a Painted Lady.  You can see what the enclosure was made of, so when it began to rain, we had to leave or get soaked!

 And this one was fairly active.  He is called a Zebra Longwings. 

There were a few very pretty butterflies, but I think the old faithful monarch was the busiest of all!   

 This beautiful sea gull is called - yep, you guessed it! - the Black-headed Seagull!  We did spend SOME time at the beach, but it was pretty cool, and we were kind of busy seeing musical shows, etc, and didn't spend a lot of time walking the beach.           There were a few brave souls who ventured into the water, but the water was very cold, and all I did was get my feet in! 

Well girls, this is it!  The last blog.  I'll be seeing you next Monday!
Until then.........

Last 4 weeks in Kissimmee

We have had an awesome 6 weeks in Kissimmee, spending some of it with friends, who are also visiting this area, a week with grand-daughter Megan and her friend Melissa, and a great deal of time riding our bikes!  We have seen lots of awesome wild-life, which I love to photograph.  Anna and Rylee, I have already sent you a blog about our first 2 weeks here, so this is from the last 4 weeks, but without Animal Kingdom and Gatorland, which you have already seen in separate blogs.  So this is mainly a mish-mash of birds and animals, etc.  Here goes!  Be prepared!  It's a long one!!

 One of the places that we bike sometimes is through a Cypress Swamp on a boardwalk.  Lots of cypress knees growing there. 

 The swamp is next to a river called Shingle Creek, and lots of people like to paddle it in canoes and kayaks like this one. 

This beautiful bird has long yellow legs, and I believe it is called a Greater Yellowlegs - good name for him, don't you think? 

 We spent one day at Daytona Beach with Megan and Melissa.  Daytona is one of my favorite beaches ever! 

 The weather was beautiful, but the water was COLD!  These two brave girls actually went in..... but only for a couple of minutes!

 This beach is perfect for writing messages on - flat and smooth.  So I wrote one to each of you! 

One day we picked the girls up from Hollywood Studios and took them to supper in Disney Springs (Downtown Disney).  They agreed to pose with this Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh, sitting on his bench outside the restaurant called Raglan Road.  He wrote the poem, On Raglan Road, about a place in Dublin, Ireland. 

 Some days, we rode our bikes to a donut shop called Krispy Kreme.  You can see, from beginning to end, behind glass, how they make the donuts.  These are the last 2 steps. 

 The above picture shows the donuts being fried in very hot oil, then flipped to fry the other side, and finally they pass through this sheet of liquid icing, which coats them all over.  We often got a donut hot off the conveyor belt.  It was SO yummy!  

We often went to see a pair of Florida Sandhill Cranes, who were sitting on a nest.  Then one day, we arrived, and there were two cute little babies! 

The Mommy and Daddy were sticking pretty close to their new hatchlings! 

 Here is the family of four.  They are so beautiful! 

Here's a collage of a number of Sandhill Crane photos. 

 I love to see the turtles, but must admit, we have not seen very many this year! 

 One of the beautiful ducks we see here is this one.  It is called a Ring-necked Duck, though I can never see a ring on their neck. 

 This fellow is called a Common Galinule.  It has one obvious difference from the Purple Galinule, which I have not seen yet this year.  Here is an assignment for you, Anna and Rylee.  See if you can find out the difference. 

 I believe this is a Red-shouldered Hawk, though I never saw it from the back, so not sure. 

And this is the hawk's nest.  There was at least one baby in the nest, having a lot to say, but it was too high for me to see into the nest. 

The Shingle Creek is a good hunting area for hawks who like to eat fish. 

 The beautiful Live Oak tree always has leaves on it.  The leaves turn brown and get pushed off by the new leaves, so the tree is always green.  It always seems to be hung with Spanish Moss, an air plant that clings to the trees. 

This is one of our favorite picnic spots, especially on a really hot day.  Shade and a breeze keep us cool as we eat and read our books. 

 The Muscovy Duck is a very unusual looking bird, and they are all over the place down here!  I thought this was a pretty cool looking dude! 

Here's a Mama Muscovy with her family of little ones. 

 We were biking beside a lake called Tohopekaliga, where we had never before seen an alligator, though we knew there were some there.  This particular day, we saw 4 of them!  This fellow, though small, had found himself a snake for lunch - I believe it was a Water Moccasin - aka Cottonmouth - very venomous! 

As we were watching him from a wall above, he moved his head to cover his catch!  I think he thought we were going to take it from him!  Believe me, I wouldn't have!  

When we were "yard-saleing" in Celebration, we saw 2 wild chickens.  A boy told us there used to be three, but one had disappeared. 

 Back to the Sandhill Cranes.  Do you remember what these unusual things sticking up out of the water are called girls? 

The little ones are a few days old by now.   

Mama and Papa are sticking pretty close to them still!  

One day, some friends came to visit, so we all went to Celebration for a tour in this neat little electric car.  

  This Great Blue Heron had caught a fish, and we watched as he swallowed it - you could see it go all the way down!  It was pretty big to swallow whole! 

 As we approached this beautiful bird, he was standing motionless, and looked like a statue!  He stood like that for a long time, never moving! 

 At first sight, i thought this was a tri-coloured heron, which we see quite often, but he was so tiny, I took another look.  Because of the colouring of his beak and legs, I now believe it was a Little Blue Heron, which starts out its life as a white bird, then turns dark blue.  I believe this is the mottled in-between colour of the Little Blue.  Cool! 

 It was unusual to see a vine-covered house in Celebration.  Then I found out that most people don't allow the vines to grow because they harbour snakes! 

Another nice place for a picnic!   

This flower smelled SO sweet! 

 The huge Wood Stork is so ugly in some ways, but so regal and beautiful when flying! 

Another picture of the Common Galinule.  Look at the size of his feet!  They are so big, because he runs along the tops of the water plants.  

This lovely little critter was parked only a few feet from the path where were were biking.  I must admit, I peaked out from behind a tree to take this picture! 

We went one day to a nearby fair called the Strawberry Festival.  It was in Plant City, the strawberry capital of the world, or so they would have us believe!  

 This is the way they grow their strawberries, and I must say it looks like pretty easy picking!  This is what they call plastic mulch, and the plants are watered at the root inside the covers, which saves a huge amount of water!  Each year in this area, over 180 million plants are grown and picked by hand.  They are picked every 3 - 4 days, which means they are picked about 50 to 60 times in a season!  Did you know that just 8 strawberries provides all the vitamin C you need in a day?

Just think how many people this many strawberries would provide the daily vitamin C for!  

We had our vitamin C for lunch that day, at a place where you could build your own strawberry shortcake.  Yum, yum!!!

 I love watching the little geckos that we see running all around down here.  This is one of the biggest I've seen! 

 And we're back to see the babies again.  They're getting bigger!  I have often watched the Sandhill Cranes digging for food with their beak, but had never seen them actually put their heads right down into the water like this! 

"Pay attention, son, this is how you find your food".  It's neat to see the parents teaching the babies, and feeding them.  

 A little sibling rivalry going on here.  One had a snack, and the other was trying to snatch it from him.  Dad is refereeing. 

I love water lilies! 

 I was so excited one day when we were biking on a back road to see this group of wild turkeys! 

 I got up pretty close and personal with this big male turkey, and I'm not sure if he was displaying like this to impress the two hens nearby or to let me know that I was quite close enough! 

 Here is a collage of these beautiful birds! 

 We checked out the hawk's nest again and caught Mama leaving the nest.  Still couldn't see the baby. 

There were 2 hawks flying around, and one of them landed in this dead tree.  

Also flying over our picnic area were some planes, flying into the Kissimmee Regional Airport nearby - even some small jets.  

  And again our favorite picnic spot. 

 The Shingle Creek is pretty shallow, and very still, moving slowly.  A great place to paddle board. 

 Again, the Ring-necked Duck. 

 And again the Greater Yellowlegs - this time you can see his yellow legs! 

When we go to see the baby Sandhill Cranes or bike in the Shingle Creek area, we have to ride 14 miles (that's almost twice as far as kilometers!) beside a 6 lane highway, which isn't always pleasant, but the end result is good!  And this is the kind of paths we travel on - not so bad. 

 I usually  see lots of these Hooded Mergansers around here, but not this year.  I was sure pleased to see this one!    

And this is the female version of the Hooded Merganser. 

I love to watch while these little guys puff out their throat like this.  Not sure what it means, but it sure is pretty!  He entertained us as we ate our lunch one day, then went onto a brown board, and turned from green to brown.     

This is the beautiful Roseate Sponnbill - bet you can figure out why he is called that! 

 The Sandhill Crane babies are sure growing!  And no wonder!  Mama and Papa are always finding them good things to eat! 

 Do you remember the White Ibis with the bright orange curved beak and legs?  We see them everywhere, but this Glossy Ibis is a little bit more rare. 

 One of my favorite birds is the Little Blue Heron.  Notice the black tip on his beak.  Now look at the beak of the white bird below.  This is the same kind of bird, but is immature.  If you look closely, you will see that his feathers are beginning to turn blue. 

This is a Pied-billed Grebe, and he has caught himself some lunch!  I didn't think he could possibly swallow this fish, but I watched him do it!    

The elusive cardinal!   

How's this for a funny looking fellow!!!  It's an Anhinga drying his wings, and telling me to get lost!     



What look like knees on these long-legged birds is actually ankles  and they bend backwards like this.  Baby is taking a rest.      

 We visited a place near where we are staying, and it has a HUGE glass dome for a roof.  There are 4 acres under the dome, with lots and lots of flowers and trees growing.  It even has this big sailboat for a restaurant!          This large area has a lot of fish in it, and we watched as they were fed. 

  

Here is a collage of some of the many flowers.  So pretty! 

This is goodbye to the Sandhill Cranes.  Wish I could stay around to watch the babies continue to grow and mature!  And this is goodbye to you as well.....til next week.....