SPRINGTIME IN SW FLORIDA

Happy Spring!      It has been busy lately around the Canal Cottage but the kind of busy filled with mostly non-photo opportunities.    These are all memories from earlier this month.   Sharing with SATURDAY CRITTERS; RATHER B' BIRDING; ALL SEASONS; MACRO MONDAY;  MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES; OUR WORLD On Tuesday; WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY and FLORAL BLISS.  Thank you to all of the hosts.

 

 

 

 

We noticed several of these flowering plants around the owner's home when we visited Pine Island Botanicals on our recent farm tour.   The green part looked exactly like a cut-leaf philodendron, which were popular as house plants where we used to live (although I never saw them flower like this).   At any rate, although it looked like it should be a house plant, it was growing rampantly outdoors.     In fact,  the owner casually mentioned that this pretty plant was a pest that he was trying  to eradicate.    Just another example of  how different things are here in SW Florida.

 

 

 

I had time on a recent shopping day to stop by the Eagle Pasture.   The eaglet (called E-9) had branched on March 6  (meaning he could kind of hop /fly out of the nest onto nearby branches.)    But early on March 14, just a few days before I was there, this  big baby did what the eagle experts called 'an accidental fledge'.  Really what that meant is that, for all intents and purposes, while he was showing off his new skills by balancing on the edge of the nest, he fell  to the ground.   At that time, he had not yet really flown.  So Junior spent a night on the ground (the parents brought food) and the next day they enticed him to fly up — he landed on a nearby snag and then that evening finally flew back home to the nest.  That's learning to fly the hard way!

 

 

   

So on this particular morning when I got to the pasture I spied E-9 on this branch just above the nest.   I spent about an hour in the churchyard, watching and chatting with the people who watch the nest all day.  I hoped to get a picture of him flying or of the parents flying in — but E-9 was the only one home (or anywhere within sight).  And the whole time I was there, he did not budge from his spot on this branch…. he barely turned his head.  

 

I imagined mom and dad leaving for their day of hunting and saying "Don't you dare go anywhere but the front porch while we're at work.  I mean it.  If you try that falling trick one more time, we won't feed you again."  

Well, it could have happened this way, don't you think?   He sure didn't move.  Anthropomorphising aside, it was most interesting to see how the eagle parents just went on to the next step in training their offspring.  They didn't let E-9's little mishap scare them from keeping on their schedule of teaching him how to be an independent adult.

 * Disclaimers:  There's really no way to tell whether an eaglet is male or female.  It's just whatever people choose to think.    You may draw your own conclusions.  

All of the information about the accidental fledge came from those people who watch every day and post to Facebook or to the webcam, which you can watch here.  

 

  

 

 

This Spring flower 'collection' came from the various farms we visited on our recent tour.   The purple orchid was for sale at the tropical plant nursery. All of the other plants were growing casually here and there on the properties.    

Many of our snowbird neighbors and friends are leaving Florida this week, heading to their Northern homes — some of them come earlier in the Fall than we do and some only spend the winter  (January through March) here in warmer climes.    But early Spring is hay-fever season in Oregon, so we aren't thinking of going home any time real soon …  and besides that,  it's a beautiful — and less crowded —  time of the year here in SW Florida.  It's a different kind of Spring, but a good one.