Well…lessee what’s been going on the past 18 days since I posted…but not actually that much on the home front.

Our friends Bill and Linda were in town overnight…they were down here from their home in NC and stopped by for a quick visit. Neil fed them his mother’s pepper steak recipe…it’s a London Broil marinated in all sorts of good things then covered with coarse grind black pepper and grilled, then sliced thin. We skipped the roasted garlic since neither of them are garlic fans so Neil pulled out some horseradish instead as the next best thing for beef. We had roasted mixed potatoes with it and fruit salad for some fiber and sweet stuff after dinner.

We had Neil’s birthday…he ordered himself a new camera that there are details on below…and their financial guys at Cassaday and Company sent him some cupcakes in a jar…one sea salt caramel and one chocolate ganache…both were big enough for 2 with some chocolate sauce on the former and caramel on the latter and some whipped cream…they finished up the second one last night.

Then last Thursday they headed off to Orlando for the Florida State Elks Convention at the Rosen Center…Connie went to a bunch of meetings and a couple of lunches…Neil skipped the meetings and went birding Friday and Saturday early. Thursday and Friday they ate and drank at the various hospitality rooms but Saturday they had a nice meal in one of the upscale restaurants down on the first floor in the center…they spent way too much on dinner but hey…in Orlando you have to pay Disneyland prices for everything and that’s just the way it is…for instance 2 cups of coffee cost almost $11 one morning and he had the worst ham and cheese sandwich on a soggy hoagie roll for $13 for lunch one day.

They were originally going to do a third birding stop on the way home in Lakeland at the Circle Bar B Preserve…but on further review decided to blow it off for a couple of reasons. First was the 0400 wakeup they would have had to do to check out, grab some McDonalds for breakfast, and drive the hour to Lakeland to be there just about sunrise…and second was there’s been a lot of rain the past couple weeks up in that area and his two birding trips earlier were sort of hampered by the resulting higher water…which means not too many waders as they tend to hang out someplace where the water is shallower and Circle Bar B is lower than Orlando is so likely was pretty high water level wise.

However…he did get over to Orlando Wetland Park east of town on Friday and then to Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive on Saturday morning…and while it wasn’t prime birding season as the mating season for most species has ended it was still better than not going at all.

This week…we got a couple things going on. Tacos at the Elks on Thursday…the lodge is finally open again after the renovation but the lodge has between the end of 2023 and mid to late 2024 to move again into other new digs depending on who you ask and which tale you want to believe. The new lodge is in a complex that will be torn down and redeveloped and a lot of businesses were moving out as the lodge moved in…seems like a dumb place to move to me but management is gonna do what management is gonna do ya know. Connie and Neil have pretty much decided that they’re going to be social members and not get involved with all the politics and squabbles.

Saturday we’re meeting Tom and Mary to deliver them some British pounds we got mailed to ourselves for them since their bank is up north and doesn’t do foreign currency. They’re going on the same choral trip next month that she is (well, Mary is but Tom like Neil is just going along for the ride). Then we’ve got the Grand Elks Lodge reopening shindig on Sunday…although that seems kinda strange to me too as the lodge has been open a couple of weeks by then…but again…what do I know.

As I said above…Neil ordered himself a new Nikon Z8 body to do a couple of things…first it will serve as a backup/second body on birding outings that works the same way his Z9 does because the Z8 is essentially a mini Z9 without the vertical orientation hand grip which he doesn’t use anyway. Second…it will probably replace his Z7II as the walking around camera…he’s gonna test that theory on the choral/UK trip as well and if all works out he’ll just sell the Z7II…which is a great body and small/light despite being full frame…but it doesn’t have the frame rate and autofocus capabilities of the more expensive models. Here’s a screenshot he cribbed from google showing the size of the Z7II, Z8, and Z9 respectively…and the weight goes from 24 ounces for the Z7II to 32 for the Z8 to 47 for the Z9…he’s more than happy to lose the vertical grip and the 15 ounces with the Z8 and the only features the Z8 lacks in is the ability to shoot long 8K video which he doesn’t do and the fact that instead of using 2 fast memory cards it uses 1 fast and one slower smaller one…both of these are for heat purposes in the smaller body. He’s never filled up a memory card in a day’s shooting and has spares anyway…and he always uses the second card for overflow instead of recording simultaneously to both cards which would reduce the frames per second performance…but even the Z8 can do 20 frames per second for 4+ seconds before the buffer fills and it slows down to 12 or so. So…no actual reduction in features that he uses and loses 15 ounces…what’s not to like. And while the Z8 is bigger and heavier than the Z7II is…the latter is almost too small for your hand to grip it without fingers falling off the bottom so the slightly taller Z8 is an improvement there.

Ok…let’s have some photos. First up…Orlando Wetlands Park about 40 miles from the Rosen Center where he had a nice 4 mile or so walk around a couple paths he’s not taken before…he didn’t see too many waders but still had a pretty decent morning.

A couple of shots of a Turkey Vulture sitting in a tree over the path…much like the Wood Stork…a face only a mother could love.

Tricolor Heron and Moorhen.

Male Red Winged Blackbird…lots of these around as you could hear the mating calls of a bunch of males working on marking their territory and attempting to attract the ladies.

Glossy Ibis.

Snowy Egret with still a bit of his mating plumage remaining…although it’s mostly been shed as the season is pretty much over for the wading species.

Little Blue Heron Changeling and Moorhen…the LBH is white as a juvenile and then solid dark blue as an adult…but spends about a year as a Changeling as the color changes.

Female Mallard Ducks.

Another Snowy Egret.

Great Egret out in the tall grass.

He was done with his hike about 0930 having arrived before 0700 so it was back to the hotel, lunch was the aforementioned lousy but expensive ham and cheese sandwich, and a nap before the Hospitality Suites opened.

Up again early Saturday morning…he headed off to Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive…they don’t open for vehicle traffic until 0700 (walkers or bikers have wider hours) so arriving for sunrise isn’t needed. He got there about 5 til and was the third car in line. Typically at this drive…which is 1 day and about 8 or 9 miles long…the first 2 miles up to the pump house is the best part by far and once you get there (a) it’s later in the morning so Golden Hour is gone and (b) it’s late enough that it starts to warm up and the birds have mostly finished feeding and gone to roost for the day. This trip was pretty much the same…most of these were in the first couple of miles.

Osprey on the pole with breakfast.

And a different Osprey with breakfast on a different pole a couple hundred yards farther along.

And a third one.

Juvenile White Ibis…although this one is about half changed from the brown juvie feathers to the white adult plumage.

And a fourth Osprey with breakfast…yeah, I know they all look the same but it’s actually 4 different ones. He also spotted a hawk flying by but wasn’t able to either identify it or get a shot as it was not spotted until the last second.

Moorhen.

Here’s a sequence of a Snowy Egret fishing…with another sort of technique he’s never seen a Snowy do before. Typically…they either perch over the water very still and then stab down when something swims by…or if the water is shallow enough they walk around slowly shuffling their yellow feet which scares up prey from the bottom. This one was dancing and hopping along in really shallow water…this series is over about 8 seconds out of a longer burst. It looked like it was chasing something but never stabbed down to pick anything up…anyway, strange behavior for a snowy.

Bunny.

Male Red Winged Blackbird. This must be their mating season as he saw literally dozens of these during the drive…all singing their distinctive song and chasing interlopers away from their territory.

Great Blue Heron posting for a portrait…it just stood there while Neil walked up to within about 10 feet for the shot.

Tricolor Heron up to his belly in the almost too deep to fish in water.

Another Red Winged.

Black Crowned Night heron…again it let him walk up pretty close for this shot.

Purple Gallinule…sort of halfway between juvenile and adult plumage.

Another Snowy Egret taking flight.

And finally…this big ol’ boy.Musta been 12 feet. He was just hangin’ out there in the canal not moving.

He then spent the remaining 7 miles or so of the drive rolling along hoping for something else. Most of that part is going due north and while it was past sunrise it was still pretty early so everything on the passenger side of the dike was silhouetted and he only could look on the driver’s side…and really didn’t see much at all. He exited the drive at the north gate about 0920 and headed back to the hotel for…you guessed it…a nap.

Interesting things found on the net.

Ring necked snake…yeah, Neil hates snakes but this one is actually a pretty nice combination of colors.

I wonder if this is the same car.

Who knew?

Cyas.