Sunday in Sanibel

These early days in March 2020, are interesting times. Getting on Sanibel on Sunday was totally unusual: usually, there is a line-up to get on to the major road, Periwinkle, today, the traffic officer had nothing to do, really! The number of people on Sanibel road or stores was minimal. It was Sunday, and even market parking was available everywhere. Unheard of, but I digress.

Our staunch explorers wished to pedal their way along the many Sanibel bike paths. Here is our intrepid threesome heading off for a few hours of sightseeing.

And off into bike path heaven they go.

I revisited Dixie Beach where the roads were severely in risk of disappearing during the last hurricane. Those pictures did not turn out to tell the story properly, so you'll just have to take my word for it. This one and a half lane road services a small community surrounded by reserved lands, a small oasis of development surrounded by raw Nature. It's access road is in serious chance of letting them down, cutting them off from access to the rest of Sanibel.

Nearby, I found this Osprey nest that was close enough to make these pictures.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Here the male flies from the nest to this appendage that is added to many nest trays in the area. The perch is to allow the parents to shield the eggs from harsh sunlight.  That is what people have told me, and I'm quite willing to believe it...

Note his lady friend just below in the nest tray.

When he landed, he kept his wings away from his body as if to let cooler air through. It was 31ºC, with very little breeze, so he had every reason to try and cool off.

During his perch time, he kept doing vocals [screams] while his partner was less that a few feet away.

For whatever reason, possibly including my intrusion, she decided to leave the nest.

It was all a fascination little play set forth for my benefit. Serendipity is awesome.

Gene's Book Store is a Sanibel Landmark. 

On Christmas day, when Joan offered the girls a trip to Ft Myers during Spring Break, Kaitlyn was quick to ask if she could go to Gene's Bookstore. Not the beach, the pools, shopping, or anything else: Gene's Bookstore.

So far, we have been there twice, and there might be some serious elbow bending for a repeat visit.

The first store is a charming place with books everywhere, one of those wonderful charming places where everyone feels welcomed and amongst friends. Here is a picture of bookstore #1. It certainly does not do justice to the many nooks and crannies that all special bookstores have. I hope it does show the quality of shelving and the decor that exudes quality, comfort, safety, and learning that such a place might bring.

Now there is another Gene's Bookstore, just a short walk across the street; it houses history and less fictitious books on war, historical battles, and all that stuff that got us to where we are today. Mind you, history is written by the winners, so reader beware...

Put a book in Christopher's hand, and...

Books are stacked on the floor everywhere, and one could spend a long time making a study of their staff artistry...

Sophie may have inherited her need to jump into a book, even at the book store.

Gene's Bookstore, a destination for the wise...

Six Mile Cypress

 Six Mile Cypress is a well preserved Cypress slough, with a wonderful boardwalk that allows one to walk in perfect safety through a living swamp. Christopher, Sophie and Kaitlyn joined me for a daily slow walk along the one mile boardwalk.

It is spring here, and the Cypress start off with this mysterious yellow green leaf colour, much like the early leaves of our own  Weeping Willow. These sights are available to everyone who pays attention.

I was in a dreamy mood for most of these pictures, accordingly they are an attempt at emotion more than reality. I hope you enjoy them anyway..

Here is a Blue Heron just enjoying a newly found perch.

Slough views are magical in this Cypress Slough.

Of course, a wild native orchid, even when not in bloom, commands respect for those who find it.

Sophie spotted this frog, deep in the darkness underfoot. I am certain that no one else spotted this wonderful sight.

It was a hot and muggy day, the facility was open with reduced staff due to the current virus safety measures. There were many birds and others to be spotted. The list includes 54 anoles, a red shouldered hawk flying through at full volume, the usual Cormorants, Anhingas, Egrets and an Ibis or two. Caitlyn and Christopher saw a snake while Sophie and I didn't, in spite of looking everywhere.

All in all, a great day for all, and now the new books have regained their attention...

Sanibel and Captiva

I have been neglecting this blog for a while, and haven't made a picture in three weeks. Now that Joan is safely home, I am back to making a few photos. 

Today, we went to Jensens' Beach, Captiva, where the Manatees were close by. These are gentle creatures, often scarred by passing boats.  They have a very small face as this next picture shows one during their very brief air breathing.

Their nostrils actually have very small doors that shut off any chance of water getting into their noses.

It was really amazing to see three such wonders, side by side, just living their day just a few feet away from us.

All in all, there were at least a dozen Manatees in the area, and human witnesses had a very special day.

Just further along the pier, these little brown shore birds joined the scavengers that greeted the fisherman filleting his catch.

Of course, the usual suspects are always nearby when someone is filleting fish...

Even this glorious Great Egret could not pass the chance on a free meal. [Length: 39"  Wingspan: 51"]

Here he[?] is, in nearly full breeding colours, just waiting for scraps that might come his way.

This is also one of the usual suspects when people make fillets of fresh caught fish, a handsome young brown pelican.

Next is a senior version of a handsome brown pelican, all vying for an easy free meal. [L:50" W;79"]

Not necessarily amongst the usual suspects, this Snowy Egret was also hoping to cash in on bits of fish that were excess to requirements. [l:24" W:41"]

These next three pictures are of a small 8" or so, weird animal that also 'swam' in the area. This was the only sample we saw, the locals called it a few different things, but Google determines it was a Mottled Sea Hare.  A most weird looking being, that seemed to use its own body as a transportation device. We only saw one, and here is a short sequence of how it propels itself forward, towards our right.

Sophie Thought the head reminded her of a hammerhead shark.

Just a fascinating little 'being', there to amaze us with the stunning beauty of nature. I have never seen something so weird, or so fantastic.

Next is the Sanibel Lighthouse. Long decommissioned, this lighthouse still is of interest.  We had hoped to see Dolphins in great numbers, as friends had said, but today, had not been a good day for dolphins. 

This old lighthouse needs much TLC, but restricted budgets, etc etc. and now it is falling into disrepair, and has reached the ungainly look of a rusted hulk. Pitty.

While others walked the beach, looking for the perfect shell, I found this delightful Sea Grape plant on the beach that screamed: Look at me.

A wonderful day with grandkids, a wonderful day using my camera again. I hope you enjoyed my day too.

Great Horned Owl in Crooked Pond

Pat and Charlie called us to say that a Great Horned Owl was roosting in a tree near their place. I had not expected the Owl roosting in a palm tree, but here he/she is. 

This picture is cropped to the limit, but I think it still shows the magic of such a large [22'l 44" wing span] bird right here in our neighbourhood.

[You can click on the picture to see it larger.  Enjoy...]

White Pelican, Reddish Egret

Ding Darling is a Federal Park with a healthy financial backing from Sanibel inhabitants. Our weekly visits on Wednesday mornings always seem to provide us with entertainment.

White Pelicans, are very large birds [108" wingspan] and are quite dramatic when landing. Here is one of the last moments before touchdown. 

The Reddish Egret has very active and interesting feeding habits. They often just spread their wings, creating shade, and simply wait for the fish to find the shade. 

At other times, like the bird below, it is more interesting to run around, stir up the water, jerk to the right, turn around, stop and reverse, jump, and try other things to catch something to eat.

This is the first stage: start running in one direction...

Turn around quickly and dive in...

During a later dive, this was the resulting small fish, little more than an inch or so.

Same fish, now to be flipped in the air, and swallowed.

Another awkward stop and plunge, likely another small fish.

Of course, neighbours can sometimes get too close, so a short charge towards them will make for more hunting space.

  
This particular bird is being monitored and has been fitted with a transmitter.  The transmitter causes a small bump in the middle of the bird's back, and is fitted with an arial that is about 8" long. If you look carefully at the next picture, you can see the bump and arial between the two wings. The bird is facing towards your left and the arial is going right, just touching the line between the sand and the water. You can click on any picture to see them all larger.

Apparently, this does not harm or hamper the Egret, but...  

I guess the information gained is valuable in protecting this endangered species.

One more plunge, one more morsel...

The last morsel seems to have been a small shell: grist for the mill?

Pictures from Tuesday and Wednesday

On Tuesday, I joined Charlie to go to a Shrimp Boat landing just before the final bridge to Ft Myers Beach. Charlie bearing his canvas and paints: I, my camera.

As we drove to this quiet place, we went from the super hyped tourist area to the working class area. Suddenly, after a few twists and turns, we ended up in a small area where the main business is shrimp: harvesting, processing and shipping.

As with most marinas, there are 'throw aways'. This Pepsi dispenser was just stored beside large, old, motorized winches that likely served their owners well in hauling their fishing nets in.

That's Charlie on the far right, already set up to do his painting.

I found old rusty winches interesting and here are a few pictures of the colourful rust that I found.

Even the old cables that hauled the fishing nets had interesting colours.

Next is Charlie just starting to sketch what he sees.

Here is close-up of one of those very powerful winches. The winch sidewall had very interesting and colourful rust patterns.

This is the blunt un-interpreted view that Charlie was painting.

Shrimp boats have very specialized and interesting fishing equipment. Unfortunately, this equipment scrapes the bottom of the sea bed, and is not environmentally friendly, but the shrimp is so tasty...

Apparently these boats leave the harbour with two men as crew, with rations for a month or more. They go where the shrimp are thought to be: some boats will go as far as NFLD to fill their hold.

Here are shots of some of their gear.

Some marinas contain a field of broken dreams, [old boats that owners desperately try to rebuild or fix], this one had some old equipment just standing there, not necessarily abandoned, but not necessarily in service either. This wheel still held up a useable trailer tanker, but suffered the indignities of the local dog...

Here is Charlie a couple of hours later: the painting is almost completed. One of the local workers stopped his huge piece of machinery, walked over to examined the work in progress, and stared at it for quite a while. His first word were: you have been doing this for a very long time, haven't you.

One would not expect a dockworker to have an appreciation of fine art. We often assume that some groups are this or that. Every person we meet is an individual, with his/her own life experience that brought them to the person we meet today. That may have nothing to do with their training, their tastes, or their feelings. I think we all need to be reminded not to presume.    ...often...

This is the underside of a aluminium pontoon that was cleaned of its accumulated barnacles, in preparation for installing a fibreglass membrane to make it leakproof. I just thought that the play of light made for an interesting pattern.

This marina caters to shrimp boats.  The boats return with a hold of shrimp that is then processed, frozen, and packed in these 5'X5' [I think] pallets, then moved to a refrigerated truck with a powerful forklift. There are more shrimp in this picture than I could possibly eat in a month of Sundays...

At the far side of the marina was this storage shed for smaller pleasure boats.

This is just one side of this 4 story facility.

Next is the awesome, huge, and powerful 'front end loader' that parks and removes the boats from the building. 

Today, being Wednesday, Joan and I went to the Ding Darling Wildlife reserve, where our friends Phyllis and Dave are Docents for the weekly drive through.

This weekly event is always filled with surprises and much laughter. Today we welcomed Richard who is a phenomenal birder and photographer, from upper state NY. His neighbours Chris and Bruce were also there, as well as Dr Bart the ultimate authority on bird identification.

Now shore birds are numerous and often similar in size, colouring, etc.  Their identification is often [if not always] difficult. A batch of a few dozen shorebirds showed up and caused some identification differences. 

These long term, great friends came to different conclusions: oh dear, what to do. Eventually, each side found evidence that they were both right: there were samples of each genus in the bunch of brown shorebird they were looking at...

Meanwhile, I just marvelled at these white pelicans fishing off the bottom, which I didn't think they did. [I have a lot to learn...] Either way, these guys were fishing together to scare stuff from the bottom so one of them could snag a snack.

After leaving Ding Darling, we went to a nearby restaurant that serves small bowls of vegetarian / vegan food which tastes very good and is very filling and likely good for you...

As we left the counter where they created our bowls, the owner said there was a Screech Owl just under the balcony roof.

These are small 8" owls that sleep most of the day.  I think this one slept with his eyes open... 

I suspect he might also be a red morph of a Screech Owl, but, what do I know...

Serendipity, the blessing for those who look.  Enjoy!