1/10/07 (Wednesday): Wow--time just flies when you're having fun! Happy 2007 everyone! We're still having a blast out here in the back of beyond. Weekend before last we went to the Brevard Zoo and hiked the beautiful hiking trail here in the preserve. Both were lots of fun. Here area some pictures from the zoo.

Each animal's area had been decorated for Christmas. It took me a few minutes to see what was hung up with these stockings!








I call this shot "mackaw love"--they were facing head to tail and grooming one another. Cute!


This bird was in the aviary--the birds fly free and the people are in the cage. I think it's a kuckaburro (spelling?) from Austrailia.

We also enjoyed a kayak ride through the zoo exhibits led by one of the docents. It made it seem more like we were on a safari than in the zoo.






We realized that we'd been to lots of different places hiking and sightseeing, but we hadn't hike the 6-1/2 mile trail in our own preserve. So we took a morning and hiked it. It's a beautiful trail. We didn't see much wildlife, but their tracks were everywhere. We saw the prints of turkey, deer, feral hog, raccoon, possum, rabbit and many other animals. Here are some shots from our hike.

Here's Wiley in some scrubby oaks. I think they're probably fairly old oaks, but the nutrients are so few and there's so little rain that they don't grow very big.










This is some very typical scenery here in sand hill country. There's almost no topsoil, just white sand. I don't know how grass manages to grow here, much less trees! I've heard prairie land described as "big sky" country. This part of the world seems to me to have very big skies.








I thought this gnarled old tree made a very "artsy" picture.

Last weekend we had a BBQ at the boss's house for the incoming fire crew. There are four young people (three guys and a gal) who will be helping with the prescribed burns. One of the guys is an excellent cook. He prepared oysters in several different ways (including oysters Rockefeller) and mussels. We also had BBQ chicken. I made potato salad. It was great fun. We sat on the deck and had a fire (which it was way too hot for, but it kept some of the mosquitos at bay). What a super bunch of people we work with!

On Sunday we sent canoeing on Reedy Creek with two of our co-workers. My wrist and thumb held up just fine. It was much more fun than physical therapy, and probably more of a workout! The creek wound around through fairly high sandy bluffs. We didn't see any alligators or turtles, which seemed odd, but we did see a feral hog (and heard two more grunting in the underbrush). We had a picnic on the banks. Great fun.

Afterwards, Wiley and I went out in one of the ATV's to poke around and explore the preserve. We hoped to find an eagle's nest just off our property that someone had mentioned to us. We did find a nest (didn't see any eagles on it), but as it turns out, it wasn't the one we were looking for. We accidentally discovered a new nest on Preserve property! This is very exciting to everyone here. I'll now be including it when I monitor the other two nests.

Today I did my eagle monitoring. I've been taking Dot, a friend we met hiking here on the preserve, with me on these monitoring trips. What a thrill for both of us to find that our first eaglet has hatched! We actually saw one of the parents feeding it -- we could see the head, back and one wing of the little one. I'm still playing with my new digital photo binoculars. When I perfect my technique and manage to take a clear picture, I'll post one of my eagle families.

I've noticed recently that when I click on one of the pictures posted on my blog, it's too big to fit on the screen. Have any of you noticed that? I think it must be the new blogger.com. Maybe next time I'll choose a smaller posting size and see if that helps. I welcome your comments.

Tomorrow is scrub jay monitoring day. Also, we're having a luncheon to say goodbye to the intern who's leaving us at the end of this week. So, goodbye for now from a couple of happy campers!