Yep…Neil actually finished processing the images from Corkscrew pretty quickly so they’ll be down below in a bit.

Not too much else is new since last Monday…we went over to Elks 2742 for Show Me The Money (or Bingo for Dummies as Neil named it) and dinner. On the Elks front…it looks like the place we were going to move into is going to require too much expensive modification even assuming we can get the city to approve the plans so there is some discussion going on that the Fort Myers, North Fort Myers, and Cape Coral lodges might merge into a single new lodge that has more members. Each of the 3 lodges has something contribute to a new merged lodge so hopefully the political considerations that killed our last merger discussions have gone away.

And we went to Walmart and picked up groceries…but there’s a Connie oopsie there. We started doing the order online and pickup thing during the pandemic thing and have continued to do so since it takes us 30 minutes or so to make up the list, pick a time for pickup, and input the list into the Walmart app…then just a quick trip down to pick things up. Plenty faster than wandering around the store ourselves amongst all the strange people that are in Walmart. We still get a few things at Publix that aren’t available at Walmart though.

Anyway…we use these ScotchBrite green scrubbing pads…Neil called them greenies in the Navy…to clean our hand wash dishes and we were out. They normally come in a pack of 6 and a pack lasts us about a year…we toss them in the dishwasher when they get grungy and toss them when they start to fall apart. So she’s going through the Walmart app and found and asked Neil if a pack of 10 would be OK…he said sure and she didn’t look at the price or the details and just ordered them. Turns out that it was actually a pack of 10 packages each containing 6 of them and the price was $45. So…we have now a lifetime supply of the darned things. We always say that we try not to be deliberately stupid but accidental stupidity happens all on its own and can’t really be worked around…but we still have a lifetime supply of greenies now.

Neil’s thinking about upgrading his laptop and upgrading Connie’s Z50 camera to the new Z50II version…she is running on 4-5 year old tech and the II model while it has the same sensor also has he latest version of the CPU chip and the associated better auto focus software including animal detect and eye detection along with a faster frame rate. That upgrade is going to happen and he’s still cogitating on the laptop upgrade.

OK, onwards to photos. The water was getting sort of low down at Corkscrew so we skipped the long portion of the walk out to the tower that looks over the grassland and stayed mostly in the wooded section of the boardwalk and the two wet areas known as the Lettuce Lakes due to one of the plants that is abundant around them looking a lot like lettuce.

Male cardinal was our first specimen just a few yards after leaving the visitor center…Connie didn’t get a photo here because the limited auto focus didn’t lock onto the bird…hence she now agrees she needs that upgrade..

Flower and bee

Backlight spiderweb…there was no color in this one to speak of so Neil converted it to black and white as one of those artsy pattern and tone photos.

Then there was this thing he found…color version first and then a black and white version…again one outhouse tone and pattern images. He actually likes the black and white one better for this particular shot.

Roseate Spoonbill.

Juvenile White Ibis…they’re brown and then turn white so this one is an almost adult. Strangely opposite to the Glossy Ibis which is white as a juvenile and turns the black glossy color when mature.

Connie’s been practicing her panning for catching birds in flight…and this shot of a Great Egret was a pretty decent shot except for the lack of critical focus on the bird itself…that will be helped out by conversion to the new model and also he’s trying to get her to change and select the shutter speed she needs rather than the aperture in the lens as some of the soft focus in this bird is motion blur due to too slow of a shutter speed…she was at 1/320 second and needed at least 1/1600 to freeze the motion and 1/3200 would have been better.

A different Great Egret shaking water off its bill after swallowing breakfast.

Snow Egret…started on the log and hopped to the stump and then flew off.

Gator.

Barred owl female and her three owlets…these were directly over the boardwalk about 15 feet up which made for less than optimum composition…but hey, ya take what you get sometimes and in the absence of anti gravity boots getting up to their level for an eye to eye shot just wasn’t happening.

And mom after she flew away from the nest across the lake…then down into the grass to eat something.

Male Anhinga…still in breeding plumage as you can see by the brighter tan feather tips on the tail.

Tricolor Heron, sometimes called a Louisiana Heron.

Juvenile Black Crowned Night Heron.

Great Blue Heron with breakfast and then a cropped version…Connie just missed getting the toss and swallow shot.

Another Tricolor…Neil likes the green reflections on the water here.

Female Red Bellied Woodpecker…the male’s red cap extends all the way to in front of his eyes as opposed to the grey top cap the female has. This feeder is normally frequented by Painted Buntings instead of woodpeckers but they were not there…not sure if the larger birds drove them off or it just isn’t their time to be here. There are 3 or 4 feeders literally less than 10 feet from the visitor center door.

And that was our day…they stopped by Costco on the way home for some meat to restock the chest freezer, then at the Winn Dixie liquor store for some more adult beverages, and then at the Home Depot to visit the Italian Sausage sandwich food truck there and bring home lunch.

Just one interesting thing from the net today…and I think I may have used this one before. Back in 1911…the Titanic was the largest ocean liner built and this is a bow on view of it compared to one of today’s cruise ships…that isn even the Icon of the Seas which is the largest one afloat.

Cyas.