I love Florida

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SeilerBird

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St Cloud Florida USA
I was sitting on my exercise bike this morning pedaling my morning workout and a Wood Stork and a Great White Egret walked into my backyard feeding along the perimeter of the pond. I hopped off the bike and ran outside and snapped a photo and then went back and finished my workout. I love Florida so much because now the birds come to me instead of me having to go to find them. I haven't posted many photos here lately so I went through my last six months and picked out a few to post. All of the shots were taken on my site except the baby Sandhill Crane which I shot by my grocery store down the road. I really feel like I live in a wildlife reserve. Here is a link to an album with two dozen of my favorite shots.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3x8jzExkRgAxSwto8
 

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SeilerBird said:
I love Florida so much because now the birds come to me instead of me having to go to find them.

What? "Love Florida"?? With all those snakes, alligators, mosquitoes...??

Ok, ok... truth be told, I'm just jealous!  ;)  We've gone to florida for a few weeks every winter for the past ten years or so. We really enjoy visiting and taking photos at some of MANY bird watching areas there. But this year it looks like we'll be headed more Westerly and not make it down to FL. Guess you'll just have to tell all the birds there we said "HI!".

Also, another nice shot to add to your great collection of images!
 
Arch Hoagland said:
Do you ever get pictures of alligators?
Yes I do but not very often. I see a five or a six footer swimming around in my lagoon but all you really see it the top of their nose. I have an annual pass to Gatorland and they have hundred of gators of all sizes that you can get very close and then shoot away so I usually don't bother to photograph the ones in my lagoon. Here are a few from Gatorland:
 

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Born and raised in Florida. Twenty fours years there. It?s a nice state. Great beaches. Has one of the best universities in the country. But we aren?t going back. Son, daughter and grandkids are here so that?s where we need to be. Tom, if you like Florida now you should have lived there in the 50?s & 60?s.
 
Good alligator pictures!

We've been to Florida probably ten times and I've never seen a live alligator. Saw signs at RV parks warning people with dogs and kids to keep an eye out for alligators as they will eat them.

Your state also has the best roads I've seen anywhere.
 
Arch Hoagland said:
Good alligator pictures!

We've been to Florida probably ten times and I've never seen a live alligator. Saw signs at RV parks warning people with dogs and kids to keep an eye out for alligators as they will eat them.

Your state also has the best roads I've seen anywhere.

Alligators used to swim behind my Parents house on Spruce Creek. There is a park a few miles from the University of Florida. My wife and I were walking through it one day and came upon a den of maybe 50-75 gators. You could walk right down to them. Had a gator chase me in Louisiana once. It was at Barksdale AFB. Me and several other guys were out in the truck one day and somebody mentioned they had the key to get into the retention pond. We were walking around the back side and all of sudden heard a rustle and loud hiss. We walked up on a momma gator with her babies. Found out I could outrun a gator in combat boots. Man those animals are fast.
 
Oldgator73 said:
Alligators used to swim behind my Parents house on Spruce Creek. There is a park a few miles from the University of Florida. My wife and I were walking through it one day and came upon a den of maybe 50-75 gators. You could walk right down to them. Had a gator chase me in Louisiana once. It was at Barksdale AFB. Me and several other guys were out in the truck one day and somebody mentioned they had the key to get into the retention pond. We were walking around the back side and all of sudden heard a rustle and loud hiss. We walked up on a momma gator with her babies. Found out I could outrun a gator in combat boots. Man those animals are fast.


Yikes that must have been scary!  Think I'll stay in California with the earthquakes.
 
What? "Love Florida"?? With all those snakes, alligators, mosquitoes...??
I have yet to see a snake in the wild here. I rarely see an alligator in the wild and I have gotten maybe three mosquito bites in six years. Plenty of problems with other types of bugs like cockroaches but I have finally solved that problem.
 
Oldgator73 said:
Born and raised in Florida. Twenty fours years there. It?s a nice state. Great beaches. Has one of the best universities in the country. But we aren?t going back. Son, daughter and grandkids are here so that?s where we need to be. Tom, if you like Florida now you should have lived there in the 50?s & 60?s.
No, I should have lived here a hundred years ago. They claim the birds have been reduced by about 90% since then. Their habitat has been destroyed and millions of birds were killed for ladies hats.
 
PancakeBill said:
Humidity.  Not for me.

Other than that I liked  when we lived there.
I hear that from a lot of people but for some strange reason I never notice the humidity. I have a humidity gauge right next to my chair so I am always aware of what the humidity is but I just don't notice any difference between 20% and 99%.
 
Arch Hoagland said:
Yikes that must have been scary!  Think I'll stay in California with the earthquakes.
I lived in California for 40 years and it is still my favorite state, certainly the most beautiful with nine National Parks. And I lived through a few earthquakes. The nice thing about Florida is the hurricanes give you lots of warning whereas earthquakes give no warning.
 
SeilerBird, do you have Bald Eagles in Florida now?  They have started ranging back into Louisiana the last few years, and we have one living around the family cattle ranch now, I saw it swooping down over a pond full of Canadian Geese and then perching in a pine tree last week, and someone else spotted it eating one of them geese last Thursday morning.
 
Isaac-1 said:
SeilerBird, do you have Bald Eagles in Florida now?  They have started ranging back into Louisiana the last few years, and we have one living around the family cattle ranch now, I saw it swooping down over a pond full of Canadian Geese and then perching in a pine tree last week, and someone else spotted it eating one of them geese last Thursday morning.
Yes we do, in fact central Florida leads the lower 48 in eagle nests. We now have more than Minnesota but not as many as Alaska. There is an eagle cam nest located in Fort Myers, 150 miles south of me, that me and my brother watch every day. There are two eggs in the nest and one is suppose to hatch in five days. We have been watching the last few years. It is better than any TV program, just a little bit slower.

https://www.dickpritchettrealestate.com/eagle-feed.html

Last year I drove down to see the nest in person after the babies had fledged. Here are my photos from that trip:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1XyA0nTuulnIAubw1
 
SeilerBird said:
I have yet to see a snake in the wild here. I rarely see an alligator in the wild and I have gotten maybe three mosquito bites in six years. Plenty of problems with other types of bugs like cockroaches but I have finally solved that problem.

I saw more snakes in my 24 years in Florida than I have in the subsequent 43 years living in 13 states and two foreign countries. In Florida I saw a rattlesnake so big it spanned a two lane road. I?ve seen nests of cottonmouths in creeks. My cousin and I were going out to our parents property one day and saw some kids in a field clubbing something. We stopped and asked what they were doing. They said they killed a rattler. We asked if we could have it and they gave it to us. We threw into the back of the station wagon (it was the 60?s) and took it with us. When we got to the property the snake was gone. We found it coiled under the front passenger seat, where I was sitting. Evidently the rattler was just knocked unconscience. We got it out and my dad chopped it?s head of with a shovel. Many, many snake stories when I was growing up. Like when we found a huge cottonmouth at my cousins on the trail behind his house. He killed it with a shovel. My brother?s first BIL got bit by a rattlesnake while mucking out a horse stall when he got bit by a rattlesnake. He was from Vermont and never saw a rattler so kept on working. That night he was in great pain and his leg was grossly swollen. They got him to the hospital just in time to save his leg. I?ve got many more stories but I?ll stop  for now. Ask me about black widow spiders or the time my cousins killed a big gator in their pond one night. Shouldn?t have been a problem but Norman Swartzkopf (the General) lived not far from them. This was in Tampa. They got concerned when several helicopters started circling their property.
 
Oldgator73 said:
Born and raised in Florida. Twenty fours years there. It?s a nice state. Great beaches. Has one of the best universities in the country. But we aren?t going back. Son, daughter and grandkids are here so that?s where we need to be. Tom, if you like Florida now you should have lived there in the 50?s & 60?s.

Just curious .....what changed from the 50-60's ?  :)
 

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