Yesterday's Fun

 First of all, here is the computer island, or as Chris calls it: continent. It's a very spacious countertop 'continent' with suitable plugs, seats and lighting for comfortable computing.  Much too easy to spend way too much time in from of computers, but I digress.

To get away from the screen, and venture out into the real world, a walk around the town-center was in order.  In this gated community, our place is two miles away from the only gate, and in the town-center, part of the Pelican Preserve development, you can find all kinds of activities for the residents; below is the well-manicured grass of the lawn-bowling area.

 This being Florida, the geckos are everywhere, and all the survivors are either well camouflaged or very fast.

Now here's a sign you don't see too often...

 
Of course, that sign is at the entrance to the butterfly garden, but January is not the recommended time for either the blooms or the butterflies. I did manage to find this Pupa [Chrysalis] and might plan future visits in the hope of its coming out party.

With any luck, the chrysalis will evolve into a full-fledged butterfly, possibly similar to this Soldier Butterfly. The second picture below is a similar Soldier Butterfly with the backs of the wings showing.  Now you can really tell that it's not the more well-know Monarch.

 Of course, every butterfly garden must have a Koy pond also, right?  The Koy looked more like giant carps than well-bred Koys, so I thought this waterlily in fall colours might be more interesting

After the butterfly garden, and its dozen or so inhabitants, I walked over the to Preserve's Nature Walk, a very well made boardwalk meandering through a natural area in the middle of the development.

This Little Blue Heron [immature] was walking on a bridge railing nearby; cute or what.  It's about 18" high or so.

Of course, what nature walk would be complete without a hawk; this one a Red-Shouldered hawk, taking a broken twig with some spanish moss to its nest.  You can just see the right talon rising as she gets ready for flight.

Sometimes, even those with regal bearings have to yawn...

Now I think it's time to set somethings straight: the proverbial question as to where babies come from. 

First of all, I hate to dissolution some, but they are not downloaded from the Internet.  Really.  The old wives tale of being delivered by a stork is far more accurate, and the regal looking Wood Stork below is proof, right?

The black shadow in the background is a turkey vulture, always keeping a sharp look-out on the boardwalk for people who might fall asleep on the many comfortable viewing benches along the walk. [sorry for the extra large gap, I can't fix it...]