Yesterday, just on the outskirts of the historic district of St. Augustine, we stumbled upon a slough full of avian wildlife--aka birds. And, as if they were in the Galapagos, they kindly posed for pictures, some quite close up.
There were great egrets, ducks and a a variety of nondescript waders. In fact, fish-eating ducks drove fish into the inlet where the waders hung out to spear, catch and eat them. Some of the more interesting were:
But a wood stork spending 20 minutes successfully trying to swallow a fish stole the show! Interestingly, the great blue above was watching him carefully hoping the stork might drop the fish which nearly happened several times. And, surprisingly to me, once the stork had swallowed his prey, he immediately set about hunting for another.
Last evening after dinner, as we walked out the dock to Katahdin, we only saw nine black-crowned night herons, the last of which was fishing from one of Katahdins dock lines. On any other night we would have been ecstatic; but, as you'll recall, the night before we saw eleven.
Today, we traveled from St. Augustine to the Halifax River Yacht Club in Daytona Beach. Countless dolphins swam to the boat and took a look. Some swam under; others briefly escorted us; and a few just turned away. What fun. We also saw dozens of willets huddled together on a bridge abutment, apparently trying to get warm.
As we wound down the Palm Coast part of the ICW, three sheriff's boats with blue lights flashing greeted us. Despite the fact that we had slowed down immediately upon seeing the first--in fact before we could even see the blue lights--he nonetheless pulled us over. Now, I'm religious not only about obeying all boating laws and regulations but also about being courteous to whomever we come upon. What could they want? I didn't think we had gone too fast anywhere. We are properly registered and papered. Were they checking for illegal immigrants? Drugs? Hmm. As we stopped next to them, the Admiral went on deck to take matters into her own hands. Though I couldn't hear a word being said, I saw talking, hand gestures, pointing, etc. It turns out they had divers in the water and simply asked that we proceed down the far side of the channel at idle speed. Easy enough to do. But they also asked if we could swap boats..At least they had a sense of humor. As we went by, we observed numerous FBI agents and countless sheriff.s deputies standing on the bank watching. Must be a union job. We've tried to google the activity but without luck. Were they looking for a body? Drugs? A murder weapon? Perhaps we'll never know.
Off to Coco Beach tomorrow.
Boy, you always have interesting adventures. I wonder what the sheriffs were up to... Jackie's life list must be getting pretty long. Fun!
Excellent. From our living room in MD, we can see the Sassafras River. Our house is on a bluff above the river. There is a large dead tree in our line of vision. We frequently see ospreys, great blue herons and bald eagles perched in that tree, sometimes eating a fish from the Sassafras.