I’m still working on my butterfly shots. The perfect place to do that is Folly Farm in Safety Harbor. There is a great butterfly garden there.

While shooting butterflies I noticed a plant that had a lot of the grasshoppers on them. It was mid-May and these guys are just starting to show up. These Eastern Lubbers will get even bigger and turn orange when they are fully grown. They can eat through plants very quickly.

The red shoulder hawk was sitting on the first tree in front of the butterfly garden.

A few trees over was the baby. The nest was in an open palm tree but the nest was pretty high up. I waited a while hoping one of the parents would come and feed it but that must have happened much earlier that morning.

Before going to Folly Farm I stopped at the mangrove boardwalk near the fishing pier for a quick walk.

It was pretty quiet. Only the usual birds were there including red-winged blackbirds and a yellow crowned night heron.

The sea ox-eye was in full bloom along the boardwalk. Also called sea marigolds, it lives in salt marsh areas. The only other place I remember seeing it is at Fort Desoto.