Sunday March 9th 2025

I spent the weekend in search of wildlife. On Saturday I drove north to Clermont. The park on the shore of Lake Minneola usually has a lots of wildflowers in bloom and a few wadding birds along the lake. On this visit all I found was people partying. The park seems to be very popular for birthday and anniversary parties. All of the pavilions seemed to have the balloons and music of merriment as people celebrated. The only wildlife I found suitable for picture taking were a couple of squirrels.

Today, Sunday, I drove south to the Kissimmee River area east of Lake Wales. This area has had a lot of birds and even an alligator or two in past visits. Today I didn’t find much of interest. There were a few birds occupying the buoys in the river and what I think was an Osprey down river fishing by diving toward the water from about thirty feet in the air. It was unsuccessful as each dive ended well above the waters surface.

Traffic both days this weekend was heavy. It doesn’t help that most of my driving is in the afternoon and early evening. I try to get my chores around the base camp done in the morning before I venture out. Today’s task was of the yard work variety. I had to trim the Bougainvillea bush. It has beautiful purple flowers, but the stems have little thorns and it grows rapidly. This is the third time this “winter” I’ve had to trim it.