Little critters at the botanical gardens

Posted on June 7, 2022 by dinajohnston

This beautiful hanging orchid plant was blooming in mid-April at the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo.

I love these spikey pods that bust open and are filled with fuzz. I still can’t figure out what these are.

A butterfly had landed high up on this silk floss tree.

Tiny critters in the butterfly garden. There were a lot of monarch caterpillars on the big milkweed plant. I think the bottom caterpillar is an orange barred sulfur butterfly.

Usual birds here are the dove and the brown thrasher.

And of course I can’t walk by and not take pictures of the wood ducks floating around. This time I also saw some on the fence.

A crow flying by with an egg in his beak. Probably a turtle egg.

I stopped at nearby Largo Nature Preserve after leaving the botanical gardens and it was pretty quiet there. I did notice some heads sticking out of holes in some dead trees near the parking lot. A screech owl had been nesting in one. I never made it back here to see if there were any babies. A red bellied woodpecker was checking out the other hole. Probably just started to work on a nest.

An all day walk at Disney

Posted on December 9, 2021 by dinajohnston

Last year we did not make it for our annual lunch at Disney Springs so this year we couldn’t miss it. We knew it would be crazy crowded (and it was later in the day) so we got there early to walk around before lunch.The above statues are made out of Leggos and there’s always a line to get in that store.

All of Disney was decorated for Christmas this week.

After lunch we decided to try something different. We didn’t want to go to a theme park but instead hopped on a bus to a hotel and then rode the monorail to several of the nice hotels to walk around and look at the holiday decorations at each one. I didn’t really notice the decorations at the Polynesian Resort but I thought this statue above was really cool and it had beautiful orchids all around it.

We could see the Grand Floridian across the lake and decided this would be our next stop on the monorail ride.

The lobby at the Grand Floridian was beautiful. They have a large lifesize house made out of gingerbread and candy. The details were incredible. There were people standing in the back of the house selling gingerbread cookies. That’s how big it was.

All of the details at this hotel are perfect. Down to the wreaths hanging in the lobby.

We headed back to our car at Disney Springs and stopped at a french pastry shop to get some desserts to take home.

After a long day of walking around, we got back into Tampa as the sun was going down behind the buildings downtown. My sister snapped this with my phone. I love the reflection on the hood.

Flamingo Gardens

Posted on April 15, 2019 by dinajohnston

Pretty flowers.

Things in the water.

Peacocks had free run of the gardens. They were everywhere. One lady was even taking a dirt bath.

Yes, there were flamingos at Flamingo Gardens.

Egyptian geese also had the run of the gardens. They are also pretty common out in the wild in the south Florida area.

A wild hawk was building a nest near the aviary.

Brett and I stopped in the old Florida attraction while we were in the Fort Lauderdale area visiting some of his relatives.

Debbie’s and Dave’s Botanical Gardens

Posted on June 23, 2018 by dinajohnston

Lots of things were blooming at my sister’s house in north Birmingham when I was visiting over Easter weekend. A bad storm hit the day before I arrived and when the sun came out over the weekend, everything started blooming quickly.

She had orchids blooming in the kitchen.

A fire in the old pot-bellied stove kept us warm while we watched the full moon rise out in the backyard.

Bright colors in the dead of winter

Posted on January 24, 2018 by dinajohnston

Yes, dead of winter is a relative term here in central Florida. It was a sunny day with a high around 72 degrees over Thanksgiving week. These were all taken at Selby Gardens in the conservatory with my Nikon 85mm macro lens.

Linking to Wednesday Around The World