Blue Eyed Birdie

I love these cormorants, with their bright blue eyes.

March Madness

The calendar page for this week is a rather spectacular bromeliad in the midst of blossoming. This plant is normally all green, but the leaves begin to turn a brilliant red when the time is right. The white bulb near center will continue to grow until it erupts into a large display of purple flowers. Pretty cool, eh? The little round item you see on the bulb is an acorn that fell down from an oak tree above. The leaves on this plant are pretty spiny, so I couldn't get in there and remove it.

Tis The Season

The mating season, that is. Take a close look at this great egret, and you'll see the tell-tale signs that he's ready to breed. The skin around the eyes has turned a bright green, and he's grown long decorative feathers that flow in the breeze. I'm saying it's a he, but I don't know for sure. I think both sexes exhibit these changes.

March, Smarch

It may be the third day of March already, but I've neglected to get you a monthly calendar page. Until now, that is. Here's a great shot of the Cleveland skyline reflected in the Cuyahoga River. This was shot from the Hope Memorial Bridge (again) one day last year. Hard to believe that this is the same river that you've seen in some of my other pictures taken in much more rural areas. At one time, this river was so polluted, it actually caught fire. Not much chance of that these days, though. I waited and waited to try and catch one of the huge ships that ply up and down this river, but to no avail. They are so large I can't imagine how they traverse the winding river, but they do, with the help of very experienced tugboat drivers. Hopefully I'll catch one of those next trip.

A Little Bit Of March

For the beginning of March, I've got this great shot of a large fishy swimming across the front of a large glass tank. Look closely to the left, and you'll see a girl who's entranced by the sight. I shot this at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is pretty neat, if you've never had the pleasure.

The Last Little Bit Of February

Another week, another photo. We're back in Ohio this week with a quaint barn I stumbled across while slightly lost. I think this was somewhere off 303, but I'm not sure. That dome you see near the center of the roof is actually a silo behind the barn. I think the unique roof shape is due to the need for it to shed snow in the winter. We certainly don't see barns of this shape in Florida. (Hmmm, I seem to have shared this picture before in a different format...)

Peacock (Not Peahen)

I think I mentioned the peacocks of Longboat Key a few weeks ago. Well, here's a quick shot of one from this afternoon. There must have been twenty of them wandering around while I was there. Unfortunately, none of them were doing the classic mating display of the tail feathers, so this head shot is all I have to share. Not too shabby though.

Birds & Bridges

I can never pass up a shot of a big bird in front of a bridge.

With And Without

Today's lesson: The polarizing filter. Take a look at the shot above and compare it to the one below. I took these two pictures today about 5 minutes apart. The one above was through a polarizing filter, the one below without the filter. You can see the shot above has bluer skies and deeper green water. You can also see items in the water that are obscured by reflections in the shot below. That's what the filter filters, reflection. Now you know. What you're looking at, by the way, is a sand dredge. It's removing sand from the bottom of the canal at the north end of Anna Maria Island, and pumping it up onto the beach a few hundred yards away.

No Flowers, Yet

It may not be a pretty flower, but it's a little exotic. I don't know the name of it, but the little group of plants you see here are some sort of orchid. Each of the bulbs is an individual plant, and each one sprouts a single leaf. Later on in the year, each of these will put out a single sprig of flowers. The only place I've ever seen these is along the Manatee River in the Desoto National Memorial in Bradenton, FL.

Where, Part Deux

Here's another hint for those of you who are slow on the uptake.

Where In The World Is Ernie (Not Bert)?

Wanna guess where I was this weekend?

The Middle Of February

You don't live in Florida for very long without getting very close to some alligators. I stumbled across this guy at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island here in Florida. I didn't hang around him any longer than it took to get this picture.

Boring Hawk Shot

Another day, another hawk. Pretty much every week, I see hawks on the way home. Today, as usual, it was this red-shoulder fellow. I don't know if it's always the same one, or one of the same pair. I sort of doubt it. I think it's a couple of different pair, or maybe even three pair. Anyhow, here's a not-so-exciting, non-action shot, but at least you can see the banding on the tail quite clearly. Enjoy!

Scarred Sunrise

As part of an ongoing tradition, here's another marvelous sunrise scarred by some inconvenient power lines. This was the view this morning from work. It was more spectacular in person, but I wasn't able to catch it with my lens. I know some of you folks don't like it when I point out the faults with my own pictures, but they really stand out to me.

Just For Kicks

I noticed in my logs that someone had run my blog through a translator. I'd never thought to do that. So if you're curious, have a look at what I might sound like in Spanish. Or German, perhaps. How about French? You didn't know I was so literate, did you? Not bad for a boy who's only left the country once. Wait, you haven't seen anything yet. Chinese, Japanese, Korean? I'm all over the place! (OK, so those don't work so well if you don't have the correct language packs and fonts installed.) Back to some countries that use the western alphabet. Here's Italian & Portuguese. Why don't they have Russian? I wish I had a picture to go with this.

Happy Valentine's Day

Just in time for St. Valentine's Day, a blossoming bombax tree for your enjoyment. Those flowers are about 6" across, and the bud below is almost three inches tall.

The Week In February With Valentine's Day In It

Here's another great sunset for all my fans out there (both of you). This is Egmont Key in Tampa Bay, Florida. You can see the small lighthouse out on the island, and if you look closely, it's lit! I don't know how many pictures I had to take to get one where the light was pointed in the right direction. There are no bridges to this island, you have to take a ferry to visit it. This shot was taken from Ft. Desoto, which has been very well documented here on the blog.

Flower 'N Tree

Here are some more flowering trees to show you what life is like in Florida in the winter. I shot these a couple of weekends ago out on Longboat Key. These clusters of red flowers are on an African Tulip Tree (Spathodea Companulata). It took me a long time to figure out what the name of the tree was, but sometimes you just get lucky and happen to stumble across a name. It also helps to have a little competition. (Big thanks to you-know-who-you-are!) I've only ever seen these trees in one place in front of a resort out on Longboat, the red ones on one side of the road, and a single yellow-blossomed tree on the other. I may have thrown a shot of this same flower up on the blog last year sometime in hopes that someone could identify it, but I can't find that post now, and no one ever offered any help. (Ha! Found it!)

A Second Glance

They say the devil is in the details, but evidently, so are the dolphins. The shot above is one of the many pictures I took Sunday. I shot it only a few minutes later than this other shot I showed you yesterday that I felt was much better. This shot was from up on a bridge about 60 feet above the waterline, and I thought it would be nice with the boat leaving a sharp white trail across the green water. It wasn't as nice as I wanted, so I breezed past it when posting last night. But today I flip by it again and notice something that I missed before. Look in the water down beneath the boat. Yep, there's a dolphin in there. You can clearly see him in the detail below. He's there in the shot before this one as well (but only as a vague shadow in the water), but not in the next shot. Those shots are only separated by about a third of a second, so this guy is fast! It was only last week that I got a semi-decent dolphin picture, so maybe my marine mammal luck is changing.