Spring Break!!

I can now say, for the first time ever, that I spent my spring break in Florida!  But not doing the typical thing I'm sure most college kids my age usually do in Florida on spring break I guess :)

It took me two days to drive there (the last hour of which was spent sitting in traffic - probably about only 10 miles away from my actual destination... ugh!), but the drive was totally worth it because I had such a great time!  As some of you already know, my best friend Kira, and her husband Rob, moved to Clearwater, FL this past fall.  Saying they love it there is a bit of an understatement.  Even though it was the first time I visited them down there, it seemed like they had been living in FL their whole lives.  They used to live in NYC (the Bronx), and although we always had a blast when we hung out there, after seeing them in FL I think they are now where they truly belong and I am SO happy for the two of them - ok, enough about them.... (love you guys!)  :)   Anyway, we were able to find a really great price on a plane ticket for Bob to fly down for the weekend even on such short notice!  He was originally going to only stay until Monday (he flew into Tampa Friday evening, so he would just be there for the weekend), but then he found out he had more vacation days than he thought he did, so he ended up staying until Thursday instead!  We both were so happy to be able to see each other for so long, completely unexpectedly.  Ok, enough of that too.

So I know this post isn't really about my grad project, or any one else's, but I still have some pretty cool pictures and figured I'd show them off!  (Those of you who are on facebook will probably have already seen most of these, but there are some on here that I didn't post on facebook.)

Here are some great crested comorants.  They are pretty common in Florida so no one really gets too excited about them - I think they are even considered pests in some places.  But I think they are cool.  A lot of times you'll see them perched somewhere with their wings open, just soaking up the sun.

This is a common moorhen.  I think this is the first one of these that I've seen in the wild, so I was pretty excited.  There were a couple of them in this pond.  (By the way, this is the pond that is in Kira and Rob's apartment complex right behind their building.)

This was also the first time I saw white ibises in the wild so at first I was pretty excited about these guys too, but they are also everywhere, so although they are pretty and I still liked watching them, I didn't get too excited over them after the 100th or so time I saw one :)

This is also an ibis.  It's either a female or a juvenile... I never looked it up.

If you look in the water in this picture you'll see two craters in the dirt under the water.  Those were built by fish (probably tilapia since we saw a lot of them hanging out in these nests).  The males usually build the nests to attract females.

There is a lizard hiding in this picture :)  Can you spot him?

Kira and Rob took us to watch the sun set on the beach.  It sure was pretty!

I liked this picture since I caught a couple gulls and a wave in there too :)

Here is another ibis.  I thought this picture was pretty cool since he was in the ocean.  Kira and Rob took us to Fort de Soto Park where we had a picnic lunch and hung out on the beach for a while.  This picture and the next few are from there.  We even saw dolphins playing in the ocean!  But I didn't get any pictures of those.

As usual, and unnecessary number of gulls were hanging around.

This is another bird I have never seen before.  I think Bob and I keyed it out as a millet.  I can't remember if that is the name, and I don't have my bird book with me right now, so I can't check.  It was pretty cool though.

Here is a video of him looking for food in the water.  You'll have to excuse the shaky camera work.  I was laughing during a couple parts because he runs away from the waves and I thought it was funny.

Here is a colorful spider we found along a nature trail.  I personally don't like spiders, but Bob was looking at it.  As far as spiders go I guess it is kinda pretty...

Right below the leaf that the spider was on was this cocoon.  Pretty cool looking huh?

There were also a lot of brown pelicans down there.  There were several in this area and they would fly straight down from the sky and dive for food.  I think it's so neat how they can fly so close to the surface of the water like in this picture.

On Monday Bob and I went to the zoo.  I won't bore you with pictures of all the captive critters there.  But we did get some cool pictures of some wild egrets and herons that were roosting above some of the exhibits.  This picture is of a great egret with two chicks in the nest! Once Bob and I started taking pictures other people around us noticed and started taking pictures of them too.  I don't think other people even realized they were there until we did.

Here is a short video of the egret's nest.  Looks like one chick was a little impatient about being fed!

This is a little blue heron.  These are one of my favorite birds! I think they are so cool!

Here is another view of the great egret.  You can see the long feathers they get that come off their backs during breeding season. They're pretty!

Here is a better view of a little blue heron.

Another picture of a great egret.  Again, you can see the long feathers coming off their backs.

Ok, so I guess I did include one captive picture, but I thought it was funny.  This ibis was pecking in the hay all around this snoozing black bear.  At one point it pecked really close to it's foot and then stepped back really quickly as if it was waiting for the bear to get up.  It was pretty comical to watch.

After the zoo Bob and I decided to make dinner for Rob and Kira that night so we decided on kabobs on the grill!  They were sooo good!  A perfect ending to a great day :)

I'm pretty sure that owl statue is there in the far corner to keep other birds off this little deck.  As you can see from the picture, it's not working...

Here is a little turtle in the pond behind Kira and Rob's apartment.  We're thinking maybe he is used to being fed because he came right over to us and followed us along the bank for a little while.  That's not usual turtle behavior.

Even though we keep moving further away from each other we're still best friends!  I'm so happy to have her and thankful that she let Bob and I spend the week with her and Rob!

Well that's it for spring break!  Now back to school and work.  I have one more weekend off before I am going to start doing some field work again.  It won't be the month and a half long marathon it was last time so hopefully I won't wear myself out!  It's already getting pretty hot down here.  It's been in the 80's here in Alpine, and I've been keeping an eye on the temperature at my other sites too - in Big Bend National Park its been in the high 90's!!  Not looking forward to working in that heat!  Guess I better get used to it though! We also haven't had any rain here since September!  Isn't that ridiculous??  I know people up north get the winter blues/depression... I think down here I am getting desert blues/depression - it's just so brown right now and there is no color anywhere!  I can't wait until we get some rain so that things will green up a little.  Being in Florida was a nice break from the brown.

Anyway, I guess that's it for now!

Until next time, Laura :)