Driving into Spring

February 12, 2025

When I was a child, I thought winter was everywhere; that everybody had snow and ice and gloomy, overcast days. I didn’t know that you could get in your car and drive for a thousand miles and spring would magically appear! It wasn’t until I retired that I fully appreciated the phenomena of packing up your bags and driving into spring!

**My granddaughter, Emmy, enjoying winter like I once did**

It’s not that I disliked winter as a child, I just didn’t know anything different. It’s not that I dislike winter as an adult. I love a sunny 30 degree day, with five or six inches of pristine snow, and a wide variety of birds to photograph right outside my back door. What I don’t like are the endless days of gray skies and slushy snow with the repeated bouts of freezing rain. It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t fun.

So, several years ago, my husband and I decided to spend a few of those gloomy months away from Michigan and rent a house in Florida, choosing a different city each year: Del Ray Beach, Venice, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, Panama City Beach, and Port Charlotte.

**A beautiful Florida Limpkin in the Red Bug Slough near Sarasota, Florida**

***A Great Blue Heron in the late afternoon Florida sun***

***Red-breasted Merganser near St. Petersburg, Florida***

For most of those years, our long drive into spring included two hapless dogs, Brandy and Corky; the four of us all crammed together in a small Toyota Prius for a 10 week stay in the sunshine state. The two dogs with their two cages, and all the other paraphernalia that dogs need, took up the entire back seat of our car! They barely had room to move. Sadly, both dogs are now gone but, somehow, we haven’t found any additional space in the car!

***The ‘hapless’ dogs stuffed into our back seat***

We were in Port Charlotte in March of 2020 when news of the pandemic started to spread. It was a frightening time and we didn’t know what to do. As older adults, we were considered particularly vulnerable. What if one of us became seriously ill? What if we both became incapacitated? Who would take care of the dogs? Who would take care of us? Should we finish out our rental agreement or head home where we could be close to family and friends? Ultimately, we stayed in Florida, but we kept to ourselves.

***A very colorful Painted Bunting at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, Florida***

***Purple Gallinule in Ollie’s Pond, Port Charlotte, Florida***

**Tri-colored Heron**, **St. Augustine, Florida**

We wore the masks that our niece, Holly, had made for us, and avoided mingling with other people unless we had to buy groceries. Back then, we even wiped down all the boxes, bags, and cans that came into our house. We just didn’t know what we were up against. Our life-saving vaccines were still months away. Fortunately, Mel and I could still continue our solitary pursuits of walking, picture taking, and fishing. They were our lifelines.

***Barred Owl, Circle B Bar Reserve, Lakeland, Florida***

***Sandhill Crane and offspring on the campus of the State College of Florida near Venice***

***Reddish Egret, St. Petersburg, Florida***

When it was time to head home, we never stopped– except for gas and a few bathroom breaks. For more than twenty hours, we took turns driving, sleeping, and snacking. And for the next two years, while the pandemic raged on, we stayed home. We stayed home the following year as well because Brandy, our last remaining dog, was becoming more and more debilitated.

***A Willet along the shore near St. Petersburg, Florida***

**A lovely pink Roseate Spoonbill** **in Ollie’s Pond, Port Charlotte, Florida**

Last year was our first time back to Florida after the pandemic, and we returned again this year. It’s wonderful to see the sun every day, and to soak up its warmth; to not have to wear masks or avoid other people, and to not have to wear seventeen layers of protective clothing just to go outside for a picture walk! I know I’ll be missing all sorts of beautiful, snow-covered birds back in Michigan but…

I think I’ll manage!

**White Pelicans in Ollie’s Pond, Port Charlotte, Florida**

In Pursuit of Wonder

July 21, 2023

Every time I set out on a picture walk, I wonder what I’ll find. I wonder if I’ll see something new, or something interesting, or something particularly beautiful. It doesn’t need to be a bald eagle, or a rare insect, or a breathtaking sunrise —although those things are certainly welcome; I mostly enjoy the pursuit of wonder, and the challenge of capturing just the right photo at just the right moment. I am as easily excited about finding a tiny snail on a stalk of a dead plant as I am about finding an exquisite bird I rarely see. It’s the pursuit itself that never grows old, and pushes me out the door every day.

A small Eastern Heath Snail that could easily go unnoticed

Not long ago, I was house-sitting for a friend in a part of our state that I rarely visit. She lives on a seldom-traveled, unpaved country road that quietly meanders into the beautiful and expansive Manistee National Forest. I ventured out on that road early one morning wondering what I might find. The deep shade along the forest road was a welcome relief from the heat, but I wasn’t sure that it would be a good place for pictures. There just wasn’t much light peeking through the trees, except for small patches here and there where the occasional butterfly would land, and the columbines struggled to find sunlight.

The narrow gravel road into the Manistee National Forest

I was captivated by the sound of all the birds singing throughout the forest; their voices echoing melodically through the giant cathedral of trees. One of those birds was louder and more insistent than all the others and I wondered who it might be. Fortunately, Merlin* came to my rescue and identified the mystery vocalist as an ovenbird!

I had never seen or heard an ovenbird before, so I stood quietly on the edge of the road, waiting for any movement in the trees, hoping to get a glimpse of one. It didn’t take long, but the setting was so dark, and the bird moved so quickly, that I didn’t think I’d get a decent shot. Eventually, though, my patience paid off.

When I did some research on this elusive little bird, I was fascinated to find out that ovenbirds are smaller than sparrows, and they will only breed where there are large, undisturbed expanses of mature trees and a closed canopy. The forest canopy needs to be so dense that it severely inhibits underbrush from developing on the forest floor, and allows for a deep layer of leaf litter to accumulate. Ovenbirds spend most of their time foraging in that leaf litter looking for things to eat like crickets, caterpillars, ants, spiders, slugs, and snails. They also need leaf litter to build their nests. This task is left to the female ovenbird who creates a comfy home on the forest floor using dead leaves, grasses, stems, bark, and hair. The finished dome-shaped nest, at 9 inches wide and 5 inches deep, has a squat oval side entrance and resembles a primitive outdoor oven, which is how this bird got its name!

An Ovenbird in the leaf litter with a tasty snack

Halfway through my walk, I came to a wide-open field at the edge of the forest, where an odd-looking bird flew overhead and landed on the top of a utility pole! Even from a distance, it didn’t look like a bird that would normally land on a tall, skinny pole! With long legs, a long neck, and a thin, straight bill, it had the appearance of a fairly typical shorebird. Luckily, the bird on the pole was singing its heart out and Merlin* quickly identified it as an Upland Sandpiper. This particular shorebird, however, loves the prairies, pastures, and croplands rather than the wetlands where its cousins like to hang out! It is also a shorebird that loves to perch on fence posts and perform memorable flight songs over its territories! This bird was behaving true to form!

The long-legged, long-necked Upland Sandpiper on a utility pole!

On my return trip through the forest, I had one more surprise waiting for me– a barred owl! It landed on a branch not far from where I was walking and posed for a few pictures before flying off. Even though barred owls are plentiful in Michigan, this was my first!

In between these discoveries, there were butterflies and wildflowers quietly going about their business in the random patches of sunlight, waiting patiently to be noticed, and I obliged.

It was just another ordinary day of small but incredible wonders that, more often than not, go completely unnoticed.

*Merlin is a free bird identification app

Maybe Tomorrow…

March 5, 2020

Mel and I have been to eight different nature preserves in as many days—both with cameras in hand.

Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Pileated Woodpecker

Great Blue Heron with the catch of the day!

One of my favorite new places that we visited was the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, Florida, described as “a journey into the heart of the Everglades ecosystem… a 2.5-mile adventure through pine flatwoods, wet prairie, around a marsh, and finally into the largest old growth Bald Cypress forest in North America.” I had to go!

Female Cardinal, Indigo Bunting (male non-breeding plumage)

Mama Alligator and her babies (look below her for the babies)

I wasn’t particularly interested in finding the usual swamp creatures like alligators and turtles, I’d already seen plenty of them. What I really hoped to find was a painted bunting. They are such incredibly beautiful birds– and I had never seen one before!

White Peacock Butterfly and a Zebra Longwing

Ironically, Mel and I spent 5 hours taking pictures along the boardwalk, but I didn’t get my bunting picture until we were back at the visitor’s center and I saw one hanging out near the bird feeders! (I prefer to get my birdies out ‘in the wild’ rather than by a feeder, but I was not about to pass this one up over a technicality!)

Another new place we visited was the Babcock Ranch Preserve Footprints Trail in Punta Gorda. Unfortunately, the trail had just undergone a controlled burn and several areas near the trail were still smoldering. Even though we had a hard time finding much of anything to photograph, Mel spotted the one thing I had hoped to find the most—a Barred Owl. Everywhere we go, we look up in the trees hoping to spot an owl, but they are usually well camouflaged and hard to find. This one was high up in a tree, but otherwise visible. I zoomed in, took dozens of shots, and left happy. What a treat!

All the other places we visited this past week or so, Celery Fields in Sarasota, Ollie’s Pond in Port Charlotte, Lemon Bay Park in Englewood, and the State College of Florida in Venice were places we had visited before at one time or another. They are all dependable places for finding birds, butterflies, bugs or alligators– and we were not disappointed!

With all the preserves that Mel and I visited, we ended up with thousands of pictures. Not surprisingly, it takes hours and hours to go through them all. So sometimes, like today, we take a ‘picture holiday’ and just go for a walk without our cameras, but it’s really hard for me to do. I always see something that begs to be photographed! Today it was the iguanas and the dolphins that caught my eye. I didn’t get them today. Maybe tomorrow…