NESTING SEASON

The shorebirds are nesting and together with the Audubon Society, I'll be surveying various areas of the beach to identify nest sites so that they can be marked for protection. Santa Rosa Island is the nesting location for several shorebird species.

Snowy Plovers

Snowy Plover

BLOOMING

"Coffee.  Garden.  Coffee.  Does a good morning need anything else?  

~Betsy Cañas Garmon

The garden is starting to bloom!!

Blanket Flower

Verbena

Guara

Hibiscus

BEACH SUNSET

Some things need explanation, others speak for themselves.

SEA ROSES

Love's Garden

Love Planted a rose,

And the world turned sweet,

Where the wheatfield blows

Love planted a rose.

Up the mill-wheel's prose

Ran a music beat.

Love planted a rose,

And the world turned sweet.

~Katharine Lee Bates

The Rosa rugosa are blooming and perfuming the air with their lovely scent. This year they are blooming profusely and you want to just stick your nose in and breathe their fragrance in deeply. However, be warned, these roses are full of tiny, but lethal thorns. To be appreciated from afar.

I see a cucumber beetle on my rose. Must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. My cucumbers are in the side garden!

FOR PAULA

The red-wing blackbirds have been around in great numbers this spring. But this is the first I've seen them at the bird feeder! The house sparrows are surprisingly receptive to their presence. Though they are a little too big for the feeder and most of the seed ends up on the ground when they are done.

P.S. Sadly I had to remove the feeders. There is a nasty !@$%# cat next door that viewed my feeders as his personal hunting ground. After finding a pile of feathers one day and a dead bird the next, I decided I needed to take the feeder down before any more birds were harmed. The cat's owner wanted to know if they were my own personal birds, otherwise, don't bother him. 

Gotta love (NOT) people.

CATTLE EGRETS

"We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love ... and then we return home."

~Australian Aboriginal Proverb

I've seen Cattle Egrets before, but none have ever visited my yard before. Their stay was short, but I loved watching them until they left for their next destination.

Coming in for a landing.

Strutting around the yard. Such pretty coloring.

Checking out the landscape.

On to the next place. Sometimes I wish I had the freedom to flit from one place to another without the worry of travel plans, without packing a bag, just taking wing when the urge came upon me.