Birds and Other Nature Sightings

      My wife and I had a late flight out of Orlando, so I wanted to use part of the day to visit Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive.  My wife, bless her, indulges me.  Wildlife drive is about an hour drive from Orlando International Airport.  Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive is very similar to Brigantine Wildlife Drive in Atlantic County, NJ.  Both are one way auto loops stretching between eight and 11 miles long through local, natural habitat.  Bird lists for both locations are well over 300 species.  However, the Florida site is only open to vehicles from Friday to Sunday.  Last August I visited the drive mid-week and the only access was on foot or bicycle.  I walked about 7 miles that day in the Florida sun with practically no areas to seek shade.  The upside was there were no mosquitoes or greenhead flies like the New Jersey site.  This would be my only chance in the near future to enjoy the drive from a car. When we ente...

     Last July, my wife and I took a mini vacation with my friend, Al, and his wife to West Palm Beach, FL.  It was just a couple of days so my wife could get away and relax.  Of course, I used the opportunity to get in some birding.  As I usually do, I spent the weeks leading up to departure by studying eBird reports of the area.  I assembled a reasonable target list of birds considering that I wasn’t going to have any actual dedicated time just for birding.  Plus, Al likes to bird too, so if I could get him a new bird or two, he’d be happy. We stayed in West Palm Beach.  That area of Florida was new to me.  Sometimes I forget just how big Florida is until I start driving around looking for birding hotspots.  It is common to have to drive well over an hour within any county to find a desired location.  On the first full day I did find a spot that was only about a 15-to-20-minute drive from our hotel called Winding Waters Natur...