Author: livingthedreamwithsallyandvic

A few more beauties to share …

The first day we got here the very first thing I took a picture of is this Northern Flicker. We have seen several different woodpeckers in Florida but this is the one we hadn’t seen before so it was very exciting. We never saw it again and this was the only shot I got.

This is a sequence of Hooded Mergansers.

We are returning to Clerbrook tomorrow (Saturday). It’s been a wonderful wonderful week.

I have another post drafted that will come out later.

Hope you enjoyed sharing our week. XO

Today is day 5 of our visit here. We’ve seen some incredible wildlife and had so much fun taking pictures. We still haven’t gotten a good Osprey dive but have lots of other great photos to share. Today’s star is the Green Heron.

Skimmers are appropriately named because of the way they fly low and fast across the water with their beaks open trying to snag a little fish. Vic thinks this is our best shot and I’m proud to say it’s mine.

Here are some more. Vic does the editing and groaned when he saw how many photos we took the day we saw Skimmers.

You may be thinking enough skimmers already. It’s exhilarating to see them flying in and start skimming right towards you! If you google black skimmers what you will find is a ton of black skimmers in the sitting pose. It’s hard to find any shots of two skimming in tandem. I sure would love to see them with babies though. That shot is on my bucket list.

Vic has been glued to the computer all afternoon yesterday going through our recent shots. I have to emphasize he did nothing to these pictures. The colors on these Reddish Egrets are real.

Usually we are lucky to see two reddish egrets at any given time. This week we’ve seen 4 together a couple of times. These birds are so beautiful in their breeding plumage.

Next up White Pelicans.

Tomorrow we are going to a place called Three Rivers in Kenansville Fl for a few days looking for eagles. There are no hookups or amenities. Perfect for us. We did a resupply yesterday and the weather is predicted to be sunny days, cool nights. The solar panels will be happy.

We are staying at an Elks Lodge in Titusville, FL, 8 miles away from this wildlife drive in Merritt Island. We arrived Sunday and met some delightful fellow campers. Two were a married couple that had been teachers, Ellen and Mike. The other two, Kay and Howard, found each other later in life and love traveling with a home base in Nebraska. They had all planned to leave Monday so now we are the only campers here.

We’ve been wanting to come over here for weeks but have been frustrated by the weather. We are having some perfect days – clear and sunny with cool/cold nights. And since there has been so much rain this winter there is plenty of water and food for the birds. The birds are everywhere! Get ready for lots of birdy posts!

Starting with Roseate Spoonbills.

Many of you know that we have been working for months to refresh our camper. It was hours and hours of labor. We scraped off all the decals and oxidation ourselves. Then we started buffing and further applications of compounds to get it clean and polished. Did I mention it was labor intensive? We did have to get help to reach the high places – thank you Allen – he is young, only 38, and fearless on a ladder. He also applied all the decals for us. We are very proud of how it looks now. Plus we saved a lot of money. We spent about 3K instead of 15K to 20K to have it done.

Now it’s finished and I’m attaching a video.

We’ve had a heck of a time scheduling a birding trip this winter. It’s either cloudy or rainy or cold and rarely sunny. El Niño 😡. We did get over to my sister Holly’s where she and Andy put on a spread for Thanksgiving and it was so great to see them and hang out. We went to Myakka River State Park (FL) and that’s where we got this Roseate Spoonbill. The park has a climbing structure with a swaying wooden bridge at the top. That was very fun to do and felt like walking through treetops.

Last weekend we went to Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive. There were so many alligators! They were sunning themselves, it was a rare sunny day.

We have been trying to go to Black Point Drive over by Cape Canaveral. Every time we plan a trip the forecast changes back to yuck. Cloudy days are no good for photography. Current plan is tomorrow – it’s supposed to be sunny 🤞.

We ended up staying at Rend Lake Rest Stop 4 days mostly due to bad weather coming up on the next stop and also in Florida. I had a migraine one day so that factored in. It was a great place to be stuck!

We left there Sept 29 and spent that night at Nashville-Franklin Elks Lodge #72. It was convenient and there were no issues.

Sept 30 we set out for Jackson Lake Island in Milbrook AL. We expected to like it enough to stay 2 nights – there is supposed to be wildlife there, at least some birds. About 60 miles from the destination we had truck trouble. Vic thought it was U joints. Whatever it was we knew we had to get off the highway and deal with it. We had been driving south on I-65 and had run into a couple of spots of congestion. Another one was coming up so we took the next exit, pulled over and started looking for a place to stop for the weekend. It was Saturday after 12 so we might not get anyone to look at it until Monday. Might as well get comfortable. Found an RV park combo conference center, and cabins. No one answered the phone but we went there anyway. The office was closed. We drove around the park and found a big empty parking lot. No sooner had we stopped than a woman came out saying there would be an event that night and we shouldn’t park there. We talked to her and found out it was a 90th birthday party for her mom. She said 100 people were coming!

She softened her stance when we explained our situation. We pulled off to the side to leave as much room for the guests as possible.

Vic was able to find a garage nearby, they diagnosed the problem and it turned out to be an easy fix. When we were driving over some rough road we hit one place just right to split a front truck tire. They fixed him up with a tire and problem solved. Yay!

We thought it would be nice to bring a gift to the birthday girl so Vic picked up a gorgeous white orchid on the way back from the garage. We took it over and met Ollie having her 90th birthday. She was set up in the place of honor with a silver tiara and a beauty pageant style sash proclaiming her age. The place was decorated to the hilt. Out of the 100 people there about 85 were relatives and she said she had great great grandchildren. wow.

We stayed there just the one night. This morning we drove to Tallahassee Antique Auto Museum where we are now. It didn’t work out to stop at Jackson Lake Island – another time.

In the morning we will do the last leg and then we’ll be back in Clermont FL.

We will sit in place for a while. We have the camper painting coming up and we have someone lined up to put disc brakes on the camper. We will get back to birding at Lake Apopka, Black Point Drive and other places. We want to see my sister Holly and her husband. Daughter Kelly is visiting for a few days in October (hurray!). I will continue to post about our future adventures.

We have visited 20 states and gone 17,000 miles. Whew! Hope you all have enjoyed following us around the country.

XOXO