Pictures of Florida Wildlife and Parks

We've been able to visit a couple of parks and wildlife refuges over the last month or so, and were able to get some pretty amazing shots of different animals and birds. Check them out! For more pictures, check out this link

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=169407&id=1060654732#/album.php?aid=169404&id=1060654732&ref=mf

On the Dora Canal...

This heron got lucky and nailed himself a fish almost too large for him to swallow. We watched him make a sudden jump into the canal and spear the fish. Subsequently the heron took it to shore and speared it several times with its beak to make sure it was dead. Traffic on the canal kept us from watching him go through the process of eating it.

This guy I think is a Cooper's hawk.
It sat on its branch watching us as we
clicked away with our cameras. It
was a real treat for us to be able to
capture these pictures.

I've never seen a heron hunker down in the water like this before.

Lake Woodruff Wildlife Refuge

Blue Heron

Tri-colored heron

A barred owl - this guy was very cooperative.

Too bad I didn't have a tripod.

This is an immature green heron. Yep,
I know, because I looked it up!

Spending Time with Geocaching and with Photo Club

One of the hobbies we enjoy spending our time on is geocaching.

It takes us to a lot of interesting places. Floridian towns have at least one mural and some have quite a few more.

Deland has many and they're very impressive.

We were in Palatka, near the St. Johns River, and a marina's wall features a very elaborate one indeed. I'll post it when I get the pictures uploaded.

Shay Fox (WOFL FOX 35 reporter on March 10, 2009) - Beautiful murals outline city walls in DeLand. Mural artist, Courtney Canova, said they were created to honor the history of the city. Yet, they have been repeatedly defaced by vandals.

"It's a storyline and there's a story behind the mural and everything else, and when it starts getting tagged, it distracts. Just seeing it was very disappointing," said Canova.
About seven years ago, Canova and local students painted one of the vandalized murals, to honor the men and women of color who lived and worked in the city in the late 1800s and early 1900s.