Part THREE: Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park in Florida

We had such fun at the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park

in Florida,

that this is part of a series of blogposts of photos taken there.

If you missed the other ones, just go down to the bottom of this page

and hit "older posts" to enjoy the rest.

This bear just cracked us up...he took the top of the garbage can, played with it for a while,

and then sunbathed!:

When we first got there, we took a lovely boat tour down the river in the park.

This was great for us Michiganders to see the natural state of Florida woods and rivers:

A lovely golden eagle:

I am totally smitten with Ibis....and their long, gorgeous white feathers on their back:

They nurse a lot of sick birds and animals back to health at this park...

I loved seeing this great heron walking here:



I SO wanted to comb through those long feathery strands on his tail!:

A playful otter coming to say hi:

I  have YET to capture a photo of an owl in the wild of the U.P. of Michigan...

so I was glad to be able to at least get some shots of some owls

at this park.

I find owls just mesmerizing!:

Just LOOK at his pretty face!:

I still have some more photos of this lovely park...

so join me again next time to see nature at Florida's best there.....

I may be interspersing some contrasting winter photos from Michigan
with the rest of these Florida pictures on some upcoming blog posts, as I still have some left of our winter to share with you all yet too.

April 2010 Florida Trip Photos: Part TWO, (otherwise known as Meet Harry, Herbie and Howie):

As promised, here are more pictures of our Florida trip.

But these are going to be

a

little different.

You see....

we had this cute little "60's" style hotel

that was on a causeway

directly

across the street

from

the ocean and beach.

The hotel was clean, really economical and had a little kitchenette in it.

We were so grateful to have found it, because we ended up staying

in Florida longer than expected.

It had the tiniest pool we had ever seen, right next to the docks on the causeway.

But for me,

it was perfect.

All I needed was to get wet and suntan...

if I wanted to swim, we just crossed the street to the ocean.

But the causeway?

It was amazing.

We saw dolphins swim right next to us!!

and

we saw a MANATEE!

(Dang, they were too quick for me to get a photo of them, though).

But what I am getting to, is that the fisherman on the causeway have practically trained

the tropical birds there to stop by frequently

to look for fish.

Every day, we had tropical birds that landed by this tiny pool

to get a drink of fresh (albeit chlorinated!) water.

Three birds in particular.

Which, forever more...

for us....

will be named HARRY, HERBIE and HOWIE.

I would like to introduce them to you:

 

Don't tell Herbie and Howie, but Harry

the Great Heron

was my FAVORITE!

Here is a shot of Harry (the Great Heron) and Herbie (the large Ibis) just hangin' out at the pool with us!:

(Don't you LOVE Harry's one long black feather that is on the top of his head?)

You see...

up in the U.P.

it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to get this close to a Great Heron

or a blue heron of any kind.

They are wild birds and I am thrilled whenever I can ATTEMPT

to get a shot of either type of heron.

So you can IMAGINE

how thrilled I was to get this close to a Great Heron.

Meet Howie, the smaller Ibis.  Howie was VERY tame (more about this later):

This is Herbie, eating some fish the kind fisherman gave us to feed them:

Harry had quite a personality.

Often, when I was laying out getting a tan..

I SWEAR

he came and mocked me....

by coming beside me and spreading his wings for some sun.....

SEE???

Do you SEE what I mean?:

(A real wiseguy....that Harry!)

But, I forgave him...because just LOOK how pretty he was!:

(I SO wanted to take that ONE head feather!)

Look at his face!:

He was forever primping.  Cleaning his wing feathers.

Look at his wingspan!!!!:

(I was singing: "You're so vain!"...he didn't appreciate my humor)

I have many more pictures of Harry, Herbie and Howie to show you next time.

So that I won't be accused of being partial to Harry

(which I admit, I was)

here is one last shot of

Herbie, the Ibis:

I DID

love Herbie's

fluffy, white tush...

those soft white feathers

that looked like a horse's mane...

Next time, I will tell you about how tame Howie (the small Ibis) was.

How's that about a cliffhanger?