Birthday, Birds, and Butterflies!

For one of my Christmas gifts, Alissa and Jonathan gave a set of three pocket sized notebooks in some of my favorite colors: gold, orange and red. A band held them together and along with liking the name of the books, "Field Notes," I was particularly struck by the notation which reads, "I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now." Absolutely the purpose of this blog.

Have you noticed how much folks celebrate birthdays these days, some going so far as to proclaim a birthday month? As someone who has generally thought of my birthday as just another day, it is hard for me to relate. That said, who am I to talk now that I had a beautiful day on December 31, and only yesterday afternoon returned from a camping trip for said birthday?

My birthday began with a visitor out back!

As if that were not enough to get me all jazzed up, we drove over on a picture-perfect day to Blackpoint Wildlife Drive in Merritt Island, about an hour away. Driving right past the entrance, which in our opinion is not well marked, we came across this:

Yikes! Neither of us was quite sure what it was, but Bruce was bound and determined to find out. Backtracking a mile or so, I knew it was going to be a nice drive because, well, right off we saw a pond with a few Spoonbills.

Perhaps you can see them better from this angle? Originally I thought it was just one, but on closer inspection, by golly there are two, plus another bird I am not quite sure about. No surprise there as my bird id skills are minimal.

Generally we just do the drive, however, with such lovely weather we took a little walk, discovering a beautifully built bird blind.

While I am getting all excited about the birds, Bruce is inspecting the craftsmanship, something he does regularly. He can't help himself having spent so many years getting paid for that skill! One thing we noticed right off is the water level which was higher than we've seen it before due to all of the December rain. Not that we've been here that many times, unlike other "birders" who visit several times a week during the migration season. One such friend is Candy who has a wealth of bird knowledge as well as amazing photographic skills. Coming around a curve, we spotted a small crowd of birders watching a large crowd of birds. And then along came Candy, who although she was delighted to see them, had no interest in photographing them as they were resting. I had no such qualms! After a very kind woman let me use her scope to view them, I took a not very good photo of a flock of Avocets, a bird I've never seen before. If memory serves me, (which is always suspect) the book I read, How to be a Bad Birdwatcher , this bird played a big part.

As to the birds in front, well I've forgotten the name of those but the whole people group seemed to be delighted to see them as well. Plus there were even more!

It was so great having a beautiful blue sky after nearly a month of gloom and heat.

Before leaving the area another kind person pointed out an Eagle.

Continuing our drive to Canaveral National Seashore, where we used our handy dandy National Park's pass, well what can you say? It is a beautiful beach with a few hardy souls having fun.

Matt sent me a new shawl for my birthday that I wanted to show off! I know almost nothing about knitting except that it takes a long time and a great deal of patience. Isn't it wonderful? 

Still obsessed with identifying the fallen animal we stopped at the visitors center on our way out where the folks told Bruce it was a coyote. Walking along the small boardwalk we saw some turtles, one of which was huge. Bruce told me they were fake, however, a man with binoculars confirmed that they were moving, albeit very slowly. Seriously, have you seen this kind of turtle so huge before?

Just before the causeway there is a park that Candy said we should stop to see what we could see. Good call Candy!

Once these fellows came back to the shore, they claimed there were hundreds earlier.

While that may or may not be true, there were still plenty for me. I think these darling little guys are Sanderlings.

Then again, it is highly probable that I am wrong! Who really cares? Just watching them scoot along the shoreline was enough for me!

They seemed to love the crashing waves somewhat like a blogger you know!

Meanwhile Dave and Michelle were texting Bruce, wondering when we were getting home because they had a surprise for me. Boy howdy, they sure did. Very difficult to photograph because of the plastic, but have you ever seen anything like this before?

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you.....there are three Painted Lady butterflies in there that we were to release within six hours. By now though, it was going to be dark in six hours. Do butterflies go out at night? Don't think so. Nevertheless, we took the cover off and put it on the front porch adjacent to the lamp. Faux sunshine, if you will. Woke up the next morning and they were still quite cozy. How do you remove the plastic, you wonder? So did we! Eventually Bruce took a straight razor to just above the "vase" and we hoped that would do it. Nope, they were still cozy. Eventually he used a straw to move them over to our Pentas, so they could have some food. In a day's time they were gone. Amazingly, after the tulips declined, I removed them and darn if those roses don't still look good ten days later. A gift that keeps on giving!

Finally a lovely sunset happened. Few and far between for a while now.

Seeing that Christmas tree in the photo, while Bruce and Bill attended the Citrus Bowl I took our tree down without incident. As in, not a huge needle loss which is always a plus.

Another day as we were about to come in the front gate I asked Bruce to let me out QUICK! Why so? The Hooded Mergansers were in the front pond swimming along fairly close in decent light. Now you know.

Aren't they a handsome couple? I was shocked to see SEVEN out back earlier today. Amazing.

Something more amazing happened on December 30th in the form of a crazy generous gift arriving from Canada. That Giovanni and Pina are too much. It was in a huge crate kind of thing that had been opened at the border, holding up the delivery. Seriously, there were so many things inside it covered the kitchen table.

All kinds of Italian goodies, but the best part are the mugs they made with our photo on them. Unreal!!

Bruce brought the camping box from storage....

Here's something....one of our wedding gifts was a set of Reverware, a standard in those days. Bruce picked these two up recently at an estate sale. Oh baby, how I love good old stuff! Wonder if these two are 46 years old?

And what a fantastic 46 years it has been with Bruce by my side every step of the way. Plus, he took me camping for my birthday which you will be reading about in my next post.

For now, I will leave you with Grace Kelly's adorable little face. Plus, she is as good as she looks thanks to the training Dave and Michelle arranged.

I was practicing and she makes a perfect subject, don't you think?

your friend,

Gail

p.s. Should you be the praying kind, our friend Jeff is doing very poorly and could use your prayers. Mostly for pain relief. For now, that's enough.