Birding Day

    Tuesday was all about the birds. We needed some space after the crowds of Disney so we headed to the wilds of central Florida. I had some target birds that I wanted to find and we had to get to the scrubby habitat in the middle of the state.

Sandhill Cranes were all over and their large size made them interesting for the kids

    Our first stop was Lake Kissimmee state park. We saw plenty of migrating songbirds which was nice and then a hawk zoomed over Riley's head. She called out and I saw my lifer Short-Tailed Hawk. I put a bounty on new birds so she earned a dollar for that one. After a nice walk along a river we got back in the car for our next destination.

My birder in training

    Hidden Hammock state park was our next stop. The ground in the central highlands is covered in a fine, white sand and it made for a desert-like landscape in some places. We found our first living armadillo rooting around under some brush and the kids got to see how fast they can run.

    Our next stop was a county park which had a meandering loop around a lake. Mottled Ducks were next to the parking lot so I got some good pictures of these boring birds to commemorate my 500th species. As the kids and I scanned the lake, we noticed a small alligator sunning itself. They were very excited to see it, but it was not very impressed with us. We wound our way into the woods extend the hike before returning to the car.

Not a man-eater

    I next stopped by myself to look around a marsh behind a hospital while everyone else stayed in the car.  I was reminded to not get eaten by my very supportive spouse as I explored the edges. Lots of wading birds were found and thankfully no alligators.

    Our final birding destination was Cornell's Archbald Biological Research Station. This place is famous for the research they do on Florida Scrub-Jays. I had been searching all day for this species without any luck and this place was my last shot for the day. Our GPS led us the wrong way, however, and we wound up at another part of the research station.

     We drove through a huge orange grove and then miles of cattle pastures, but I saw some great birds on the way. Tons of Kestrels and a Merlin were hunting from the power lines. Both species are types of falcons and it was great to see of few of them fly off after prey in the grass. We even found a big flock of American White Pelicans in a marsh.

The orange grove smelled amazing

    We made it too the right place and spent a fruitless hour searching for the Scrub-Jays as the day ended. We piled back into the car and made the long drive to Cape Canaveral. There was a rocket launch scheduled at 11:00 p.m. so we planned on meeting the Levines there to watch it from the beach. The kids slept on the way and not everyone was happy to be awoken for a walk on the beach.

    Once the glow of the rocket boosters lit up the sky everyone settled down though. It was a fun few minutes watching the rocket illuminate the clouds and then break through to the upper atmosphere. It disappeared abruptly as it left for space and we later learned it was traveling at 10,000 mph at that point. It was an unforgettable way to finish a long day!