April 2, 2012

Birding at Disney Wilderness Preserve

by Sus in Family News, Sus Tags: birding, birds, conservation, Disney, ecotourism, endangered species, Florida, I-4, Orlando, recommended, things to do, woodpecker

Last week, I took a morning off and went birdwatching  with my neighbor, Sheila.  We decided to visit the Disney Wilderness Preserve.  According to their website:

“Heavily logged and used as ranchland for decades, the preserve is restored very near to its original state. (Records remain from the area’s first Spanish missionaries.) Large-scale wetland and upland restoration has included the removal of non-native, invasive plants and grasses and the removal of agricultural ditches.”

It was fascinating to think the area looked just as the early Spanish explorers would’ve found it.

The Preserve is also working with The Nature Conservancy to re-establish the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker in the preserve. I’ll definitely come back some time and look for them.  (This woodpecker can only be found in the United States.)

We discovered a baby gopher tortoise on our path.   I’ve seen adult gopher tortoises before (at about 15″ across); this baby was about 2″ across!  I used this great online key for identifying turtles to figure out what this little fellow was.

If you’d like to know, we spotted: gopher tortoise, stork, sandhill crane, little blue heron, greater yellowlegs, osprey, red-bellied woodpecker, pine warbler, turkey, eastern meadowlark, loggerhead shrike, catbird, tufted titmouse, and hundreds of tree swallows.  We also saw a number of butterflies, but didn’t identify them.

Enjoy some pictures of  the birds, the tortoise, and the preserve itself.

March 22, 2012

A Baby Shower Trip

by Sus in Ben, Bonnie, Family News, Family Photos, Jenn, Josh, Sus Tags: cathedral, family, I-95, interstate, museums, National Park, pictures, recommended, restaurants, road trips, things to do, Washington DC

Josh, Jenn, and I visited Ben and Bonnie in DC for Little Schmitt’s baby shower. We decided not to stop overnight, so on March 1^st and on March 6^th we drove the whole way from 7 am to 10 pm.  (It wasn’t that bad.  I’d do it again.)

The baby shower was fun with many of Bonnie’s friends attending and her mom and sister, too.  The food and decorations followed a Peter Rabbit theme.  You can see some pictures in my Facebook photo album from our trip.

We took three short trips while we were in town.  We  visited the National Cathedral one afternoon; this photo was taken in the foyer before our planned stop at Nielsen’s Frozen Custard in Vienna,Virginia (even with cold temperatures and a light snow flurry).

Jenn wanted to visit the National Museum of the American Indian, especially to see an exhibit on horses and Indian culture.  We then crossed the mall to the National Gallery of Art and were really impressed! We saw original works by VanGogh, DaVinci, Rembrandt, Gaugin, Picasso, and more.

On our third trip, we went back for more of the National Gallery of Art and also visited the Renwick Gallery, too, which had an exhibit of  decorative arts from the White House.

Mike needed to stay in Orlando because of the one-month-long system test and missed joining us for this family trip. You can see all the fun photos of the baby shower and our sightseeing activity as if you were able to come, too.

For more restaurant ideas, check out my list of Places to Eat in the D. C. Area.

February 12, 2012

Otter Sightings and More

by Sus in Family News, Sus Tags: birds, Florida, pictures

The past few weeks have been really fun for me, nature-wise.

• Mike and I have been monitoring a nest in a large oak.  Almost every time we stop by we see a Great Horned Owl and her owlet.  (See the photo of two baby owls from two years ago.)
• Jenn and I saw four deer in our back yard last week.
• Yesterday, some neighbors and I watched these two otters in the pond at the end of the block. (Thanks to Geoff for the great photo!)  The otter on the bank is eating a fish.  When I “got too close” they barked at me for several minutes.
• Last week at the office, more than 1,000 swallows were circling and twittering over the property.
• Also, near the office, some of Jenn’s friends saw a rare Florida Eastern Fox Squirrel.  I’m going to look for it whenever I’m over there now.  It’s twice the size of a grey squirrel and has a white nose.

NOTE: Many of you may know I have a degree in biology.  I love God’s creation and enjoy identifying plants and animals.  I’ve done a lot of reading and some teaching about Creation (I believe in a literal six-day creation in the recent past).   I’ll be posting more regular creation-related content on The Sovereign blog.