Paulie's Quest

I know this is supposed to be a bird blog but sometimes, other creatures make their way in front of my camera lens and into my story line. This week, many of those creatures had wings but no feathers. I found these beauties in The Villages while visiting my mother on her birthday (Happy Birthday Mom). The first is Fiery Skipper. Fiery indeed. Bright orange!

Fiery Skipper

This guy caught my eye with his long tail. Remarkably, the species is Long-tailed Skipper. Go figure.

Long-tailed Skipper

 I didn't even notice that he had a bright green/teal body under those long wings.

Long-tailed Skipper

And then there was this eye catcher. It is a Gulf Fritillary. Zoom in to see the checkered eyeball.

Gulf Fritillary

 Hard to believe that this is the same butterfly seen from the top. Beautiful orange.

Gulf Fritillary

I was feeling pretty good about seeing all of these beautiful butterflies and headed back to my Mom's house where I found her neighbor Paulie there talking about the same thing - butterflies. He invited us to his house to check them out. We found this magnificent Monarch in his garden. There were others too.

Monarch Butterfly

And then we found out why. Seems Paulie has become a nursemaid in his retirement. The porch has incubators where caterpillars turn into butterflies. Here he is with the newest members of his Monarchy.

Paulie

Close up of the cocoons with the new butterflies. The butterflies come out with shriveled up wings and hang on the cocoon for a few hours before the wings are ready for duty. Paulie lets them out once they are "dry".

New Monarchs

Here is Connie letting one out.

Connie

Paulie finds the caterpillars in gardens around the neighborhood and brings them inside where he feeds them milkweed until they form a cocoon, then releases the Monarchs to continue their life cycle. Pretty cool.

What Paulie Missed

I'm down in Florida visiting the old folks this week. I dragged Connie down here with promises of mending her broken ankle poolside rather than home. 2 days drive with Peanut in the back seat and 3 days of visiting.

My mother was very anxious to take Peanut to the new dog park that Dave found near their house. The park has a "nature park" attached to it too. Dave borrowed a golf cart for me, Connie and Peanut to bomb around in. Here is Peanut on her first ride.

Golf Cart Ride

We went. Peanut was just OK with the dog park but the nature park was a hit. Late afternoon was a good time to visit. Close up views of Grackles - you can see the purple iridescence when the Florida sun hits them just right.

Grackle

This female Merganser was showing off her 'doo in the pond. No males were there, so I'm not sure why she was so interested in showing off.

Female Hooded Merganser

The star of the show had to be 2 Meadowlarks in the grass at the park. They let me get really close while they hunted for bugs. This one cranked out the famous musical song right in front of me. Wow.

Meadowlark

The pond was full of birds including American White Pelicans, Wood Storks, Egrets and Cormorants. The Pelican is in flight.

American White Pelican with Storks

Paul and Linda are my mother's neighbors. A very nice couple from New Jersey who we see each time we visit. Paulie (as we call him) sent me a newspaper article from the local Villages paper about New Year's Day birding. He wanted to go along. We never made a plan so I knocked on their door New Year's Eve - no answer. I went by the house New Year's Day - no answer. Oh well, I went birding alone (frankly, it was a joy to be by myself for an hour). Here is what Paulie missed:
First bird of 2016 - Eurasian Collared Dove

Eurasian Collared Dove

 Loggerhead Shrike calling from a tree along one of the many golf courses near the house.

Loggerhead Shrike

 A gang of Ibis (or is that Ibi ? ) hunting the golf course edge.

White Ibis

Best bird of the day - this American Bittern in the marsh.

American Bittern

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers love Florida. They are in every other tree along with Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

This Osprey was poised to fish in the mist of the morning. Connie saw him/her catch a fish later in the day.

Osprey

The Villages are known for having very tame Sandhill Cranes that walk around the golf courses. They are so tame that the golfers have to shoo them off of the putting greens. They don't even move when a ball plops down near them. As tame as they are, they didn't like Peanut. Here are 3 of them squawking in unison as we walked past them.

Sandhill Cranes - upset with Peanut

Once Peanut was in the car, the alert was over and the Cranes allowed more photos. Clam as cucumbers.

Sandhill Cranes

All in all, day one of 2016 was a hit. Easy birding racked up 38 species plus I got to swim and a home made pork and sauerkraut dinner.  Too bad for Paulie. I hope he gets out birding soon.