Bedtime

Here are the pups, waiting to be tucked in.





Unless it's about 90 degrees, they like to be totally covered up at night.





chihuahuas

Topsy-turvy

It was so windy at the beach on Sunday...





the birds had to stay on the ground...





and the fish were flying...

More gouldian finches

You can't see them in this photo, but there are two tiny gouldian finch babies hidden under their parents, Victor & Pearl.





Once Pearl stepped out for a snack, I was able to sneak a peak at the babies. They're just a few days old in this photo.





Victor doesn't seem to mind me checking up on his babies multiple times a day. I can reach right in, remove the babies, and put them back without him moving away. One time I accidently picked him up instead of one of the babies and he took it all in stride. The babies are about 12 days old in this photo.





gouldian finches

Cocohatchee tour

Some friends came for a visit on Wednesday and we went on a boat tour on the Cocohatchee River. Here are a few photos I took that afternoon. There's been no shortage of pelican photos on my blog lately, but I couldn't resist posting one more - his mouth is full & I think I see a fish fin sticking out of his beak.





I like how the next photo turned out. The egret's wings look like a parachute or a jellyfish with a bird head on the top.





A second later..





Cocohatchee River

Anhinga anhinga

Last year we went on a guided nature walk led by a very nice volunteer named Tom from the Nature Conservancy. My conversation with Tom turned to birds, naturally, and I mentioned that we were beginner birders. Tom's not a beginner. Somehow we got onto the subject of genus/species names for birds and I mentioned that I thought I would like to try to memorize the genus and species names, along with the common names, for the birds that I was learning to identify. Tom informed me that I already knew one - "You know what an Anhinga is, don't you?" I replied "yes". "Well, its genus/species is Anhinga anhinga." Well, it's been a year & that's still the only one that I've memorized. Thanks Tom!


I took this photo a couple days ago. This anhinga was right outside our back door - the first time I've seen one right here at our place.




Anhinga

Florida State Bird

The Yellow-throated Crane - not an endangered species...

gouldian finches - mom & babies

Here's Lana with her 3 babies - 1 week old. She's a great mommy, keeping their crops full all the time, just not sure why she's stepping on Baby Three's neck...





gouldian finches

Squirrel feast

These little orange fruits are growing on the palm tree in our back yard -





This squirrel loves them!












squirrel

The pacifier

My dog-sitting job is going well. The 2 "boys" love me & if my sister doesn't return soon, I think they will adopt Aunt Sue as their new mommny. But Lizzie (below) and I are having a bit of trouble communicating. She is blind, deaf and in my humble opinion, clueless. She probably thinks I am clueless. I am barking - why don't you understand what I want???? According to my sister, if she starts to wander around it means she wants water or wants to go outside. But sometimes neither seem to satisfy her, so my sister suggested giving her a chew stick. Whew! Here she is sound asleep with her "pacifier".





The black blob in the lower right portion of the next photo is "little brother" coming to steal the chew stick"





Now look what you've done! You woke her up!





Little brother pouting...





You know that chew stick will be mine as soon as you walk away...





daschunds

Waiting for spring

There is a huge winter population of robins here on Don Pedro Island. Yesterday morning there were hundreds of them around my sister's house - in the trees, on her roof, on her deck railing, on the neighbors' roofs, etc. I took about 60 photos of them, only to have the memory card on my camera screw up - the dreaded flashing "Err CF" message. I had to format the card, losing all of the photos. I was hoping the robins would come back this morning, but they didn't show. But we did see a few when we headed up to the north end of the island. I wasn't able to get very close, but I was pretty happy with this photo after I cropped it.





robins

Somebody's gotta do it ...

Remember those babysitting jobs that you had as a teenager where the kids slept the whole time you were there? Me neither. But now I've scored a sweet babysitting gig here at my sister's beach house. The fridge is full, the kids are great (two teens and a 9 year old) and did I mention we're at the beach?


the teenagers:





the nine year old:





and my own kids:








and they don't even run up the cell phone bill.

An airboat ride

My teenage nephew came down for a visit a couple of weeks ago and in between phone calls to his girlfriend, he did manage to fit in a little south Florida sightseeing. Below: As we waited for our ride, Captain Ron pulled up to the dock with his passengers, including 3 pelicans. Cool! I hope they ride with us, too!





As the passengers disembarked, the pelicans flew off. But as soon as we were seated on the boat, they returned. Here's one posing with my nephew.




When we picked up a little speed, the pelicans left us. But we saw other wildlife along the way...








And a couple of boats that had seen better days...








Toward the end of the ride, one of our hitchhikers returned. Hey - what are you looking at???





airboat ride

Tongues (and a foot)

Our pups love tuna (and it does amazing things for their breath), so when we have tuna I usually leave some in the can for them. The photo above shows Pup1 enjoying her treat. Notice how she's holding the can in place with her front paw while she licks the tuna.


Pup2 has never caught on to this concept - her tongue tends to push the tuna can all over the house until it finally gets lodged under a piece of furniture. Great big bowls are more to her liking.





chihuahuas

A Tale of Two Loons

The photo below is one that I took a couple of years ago at Lake Gaston. It isn't the loon in either one of the following accounts, but I decided that a post about loons needs a loon photo. This one is "dressed for summer".





Friday night we had the pleasure of hearing Julie Zickefoose talk as the keynote speaker at the Southwest Florida Birding Festival. One of the many things that she talked about was her adventure last year rescuing a loon from the side of the road on Sanibel Island and returning it to the water. One of the zillion things that I did not know about loons is that they can't walk on land because their legs are located too far back on the body. So if they land on a wet road, mistaking it for a body of water, they are in trouble. Julie's loon was lucky. Imagine the odds of a caring wildlife rehabilator coming along just when he needed her. This bird had some good karma. For Julie's blog entry about the rescue, click here, then scroll down to the April 5th 2006 post.


Around 8pm last night I picked up a voice mail that my sister had left a couple of hours earlier. "Sue, there's a hurt bird here and we don't know what to do...".
Actually, she does know what to do. She knows she's supposed to call a wildlife rehabber, but she looked in the phone book & couldn't find anything listed under "wildlife". Plan B - call her bird-loving sister and ask for advice.


When I returned the call, her husband answered


Brother-in-law: Sue we have hurt bird

Me: What kind of bird is it? (I always start with this question. I just can't help it, even though I'm 90% sure the answer is going to be "I don't know" (refer to a previous post about trying to help Sis with a bird problem)

Brother-in-law: I don't know - it looks like a giant seagull! Let me get your sister...

Sis: It looks like a huge seagull and it shoved itself down the road on its belly, then turned into our driveway. Do seagulls have webbed feet??? (**Note - the minute this phone conversation ended I went to Amazon.com & ordered the "Stokes Field Guide to Birds, Eastern Region" & had it shipped directly to my sister).

Me:This sounds remarkably like a story I heard about a loon just last night!

Sis: Googling "loon photos" as we spoke, No, it wasn't all black & white like this

Me: Try googling "loon in winter plumage"

Sis: Yes, that's definitely what it is!



As I relayed Julie's rescue story, I could hear loud laughter from a party going on in the background. This just happened to be one of my sister's infamous "girls' weekends" at her island beach house. I could just feel the chances of a successful loon rescue decreasing exponentially with the amount of wine consumption. How many human eyes would be jabbed out by the loon? Maybe they could put a blanket over it & carry it to the water????


As we spoke, my sister walked outside to look for the loon & couldn't find it. And this is what I want to believe... that bird shoved himself to the water under his own power. Sis said that they had seen it make a lot of progress. They had watched it push itself down the sandy road, then down their driveway. (perhaps this was the point in time that they opened another bottle of wine & forgot about the bird???) Once the bird had reached the back end of their driveway, it wouldn't have had much more distance to cover before reaching the inlet behind their house. So I'm hoping that this loon is happily swimming & diving today. It's too bad that Julie can't be everywhere.


loon

A walk on the beach

We spent the day at the Ding Darling wildlife refuge on Sanibel Island. Lots of birds, a nice 8 mile bike ride and a wonderful talk by Julie Zickefoose at the Education Center. But my photos were disappointing, so instead I'm posting some photos that I took last weekend on Don Pedro Island.


I wonder how close my sister and nephew can get to these birds before they (the birds) fly...





About this close, I guess. The birds are starting to get agitated -





And there they go...









Don Pedro Island

More pelicans - white ones this time

Last week my sister & brother-in-law took us on a boat ride from Don Pedro Island to Cabbage Key. On the way we passed White Pelican Island (not it's real name, but that's what my sister calls it). I took this series of photos of one of the pelicans coming in for a landing. In the last two photos, there is a brown pelican and you can see how much smaller they are than the white ones.
























pelicans

Pelicans at the Naples Pier

Standing on the Naples pier, I took these photos of the brown pelicans diving below me -














pelicans