Growing along the trail.

Posted on November 9, 2020 by dinajohnston

Wild things growing on my walk down the trail at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve in south St. Pete in the beginning of September. Not a lot of wildlife then but they have great trails to walk on.

Some areas have a lot of dead trees and some areas looked just like you were standing in the middle of Florida. Lots of moss growing on the trees. There were very few people out on the trails. Not sure if it’s because it was so hot and humid or if people were still just staying at home. This is the place to be if you wanted to get out. The trails are wide and there’s a lot of them.

Cool new statue up in the tree by the nature center.

The view of downtown St. Pete from the trail. Typical morning of clouds moving in before lunch so the skies were overcast when I took this.

Pretty things in June

Posted on August 26, 2020 by dinajohnston

I couldn’t find a tag on this really cool plant. Love the hairs sticking up on the newer ones. I realized that the older ones that had broken open had red bugs in them.

Little critters at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales in early June.

A hopper hiding in the dirt.

It was good to be out even if it was hot in central Florida. The gardens had recently opened back up and I had a rare Monday off so I drove over to spend the morning walking around. There wasn’t a lot of birds around but still lots of things to look at.

My Corner of the World

A walk down Marsh Rabbit Run

Posted on August 24, 2020 by dinajohnston

Different herons down the trail, A great blue, tricolored, a night heron and then another tricolored almost swimming.

Turtle on the trail.

Why do always get the butt shot pose? I almost never see these guys walking around and when I do they have their back to me. Usually I just see the below, snoozing and cruising.

All along the trail.

Trees and flowers along the trail.

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Backyard macro

Posted on July 27, 2020 by dinajohnston

My husband had just come home from work and his car was covered in love bugs in late May. They were also all over the plants along the driveway. Of course I ran inside and grabbed my camera and macro lens.

While I had my camera out, I walked around the yard snapping flowers and plants.

I found this tiny damselfly in the yard. It looked like it was praying.

The bark on one of our palm trees started to peel off and at first I though there were worms in the base of the tree but then I realized it was the roots of the tree coming out. Something common in small palm trees.

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Morning walk at Possum Branch Preserve.

Posted on July 14, 2020 by dinajohnston

The fields along the trail was starting to get over-grown in late May at Possum Branch Preserve. Once the grass gets knee high it’s a little creepy to veer off the trail and get close to the marsh.

Baby bluebirds hanging out in a dead tree. Looks like they were just learning to fly.

The usual.

This guy (male lesser scaup) should have already flown north by mid-May. Not sure why he was still hanging around but he wasn’t there the last time I was at the preserve.

The view from the edge of one of the ponds.

I stopped by the local eagles nest on the way home that’s in a utility tower. I was checking to see if I could see any juvenile eagles hanging around but only the adult was sitting on the tower. Any babies could have been gone by then.

Pretty plants

Posted on October 7, 2019 by dinajohnston

Lots of unusual plants and flowers at the University of South Florida’s botanical gardens in Tampa. I don’t go to these gardens often but I was at Lettuce Lake in north Tampa recently and there wasn’t much wildlife there. Most of the park was still flooded due to recent rain so I left early and decided to stop by the gardens and see if there were any hummingbirds in the butterfly gardens. No hummingbirds but lots of butterflies. More on those later.

I rarely see green lizards.

A statue of a cow in the middle of the gardens? Not sure why. She was cute though.

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So many colors

Posted on October 1, 2019 by dinajohnston

So many bright colors at the Florida Botanical Gardens in early September.

Found these leaves on the ground. While I would like to think it’s fall already, they probably came off in the storms that we had recently had. It’s a tease considering fall won’t be here in central Florida for months. I loved the yellow colors though.

Random things at Chesnut Park.

Posted on July 23, 2019 by dinajohnston

Birds at Chesnut Park in early May. A young great crested flycatcher, a rare bluebird (I’ve heard they nest here but I hardly ever see them), the usual titmouse and a Carolina Wren (this was one a a juvenile).

Plants around the butterfly garden.

No butterflies but a dragonfly in the garden.

A blue gray gnatchatcher sitting on a nest high up in a tree. The nest was smaller than a baseball. I didn’t see it on my own. Joe, who’s usually there on Saturday mornings with a scope, pointed him out to me.

Animal footprints in the muck under the boardwalk.

The view from the dock. This use to be all water under the dock and now the vegetation has grown all around this corner of the lake so there aren’t any ducks here anymore. There use to be wood ducks, storks and limpkins here, Now I only see moorhens hiding in the leaves.

Along the trail

Posted on February 11, 2019 by dinajohnston

Things along the trail at Circle B Bar Reserve.

The usual crawling critters along the trail.

A few birds along the trail, a snowy egret and an anhinga.

A beautiful morning in late December.

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December at Bok Tower Gardens

Posted on January 28, 2019 by dinajohnston

Cool and pretty plants at Bok Tower Gardens in central Florida.

Little critters and flying critters. Hummingbirds were everywhere but I could not seem to catch them feeding. They would fly behind or into the bushes.

I love walking around Bok Tower Gardens. There’s always something different to see. I don’t get there often since it’s close to an hour and a half from my house (and that’s without traffic). I managed to get there a few weeks before Christmas but was wishing it was cooler than it was. Otherwise, it was a perfect morning.

On my way back to the main road, I passed a house that had 4 sandhill cranes in their front yard, along with a few ibis. I pulled over and quickly snapped the above from my car. It would be really cool to see these guys grazing in my front yard but it would be rare to get them that close to the bay.