11/8/06 (Wednesday): Hi. It's me. Want me to catch you up on Phase II of our great adventure? Okay--here goes. Today will bring us up to date, and hopefully I won't have any more computer problems (or blogger problems--they're updating the site and have been down a lot this past week). Here goes nothing! (I didn't understand that phrase as a kid, and I still don't!)

Our first weekend here in our new home was spectacular. We took a hike on a trail in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest, Arbuckle section. It's a loop trail that's over 20 miles long, but we only hiked about 3 miles. On the way to the park, in an orange grove, we saw our first whooping crane! This might not be a big whoop (excuse the pun) for the non birders among you, but it's the equivalent of winning the lottery to a birder!

There is only one wild migratory flock of whooping cranes in the world. It migrates from Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. In the 1950s, there were fewer than 20 birds left. The bird we saw was almost certainly part of a nonmigratory flock that scientists are trying to reintroduce in Florida. There had been whooping cranes in FL until the 1930's, but they had all disappeared thanks to habitat destruction mostly. In the early 1990's, scientists decided to try putting whooping crane eggs in sand hill cranes nests to see if they could successfully raise their cousins. The eggs were obtained from captive birds. The crane we saw (the white one) is with its surrogate parents who are sand hill cranes. We could see a transmitter and bands on its legs. Very exciting!

We expected the hike itself to be anticlimatic, but it turned out to be great fun, too.

The trail runs on a high (by FL standards, anyhow) ridge along Reedy Creek, which eventually flows into Lake Arbuckle.



We had another unusual bird sighting--this barred owl was out in the daytime.





This is typical sand hill terrain--sparsely treed, flat and dry. It's amazing how many plants and animals have adapted to life in these harsh conditions.









This bee had chosen a very attractive flower to feed on. I don't know what kind of flower it is.













Just me and my cast here, having a good time!













Beautyberry is one of my favorite native plants. The gorgeous lavendar color rivals any flowers, don't you think?











I believe this might be a gulf fritillary, but I'm not sure. Katelyn--do you have a butterfly identification book? Help out Aunt Joyce, here, would you?












We turned around and hiked back when we reached this old truck out in the middle of nowhere. There were probably lots of hopes and dreams connected with this truck when it was shiny and new!

That's all for now, folks. We'll be spending lots of time with Wiley's family in the coming weeks. Marguerite has some health challenges and we hope to be there for her as she has been there for so many people. The whole gang is coming to visit next weekend. We hope to get in some fossil hunting on the Peace River with them, and of course we'll give them the grand tour on an ATV! I get my cast off next Monday (Yay)! I'll chat with you again soon. Peace be with you!