On Saturday (10 22 05) my friend Dorothy Brasher (aka Dot) and I had planned to take 'big red' up to the St. Mary's river. But she called me early Saturday morning to tell me she had to cancel because of a family emergency. By then I had already loaded 'big red' onto my truck and since that is such a chore in itself I decided to go down to Guana for a paddle. It sure is nice having a tandem kayak that converts to a single so easily. 

I had to break out the bird pamphlet Donna had gotten for me and I am pretty sure the birds in these first photos are American coots. I am sure Donna will help me properly identify any birds I get wrong. Having a zoo curator of birds for a friend comes in handy. These coots were all over the place. There were hundreds of them. They congregate in small flocks of 5 to 40 it seems. And when they take off they all tend to take off at once raising a big ruckus with lots of splashing. As they take off they run on top of the water to help get their airspeed up.  At first I thought it was me scaring them into flight, but over the course of the day I heard them taking off all around me in places I wasn't. I guess they are just a skitterish bird.

These guys are coming in for a landing. 

Here is a great egret.

This one is a snowy egret.

The snowy egret taking off.

A flock of American coots.

I took a lot of pictures trying to get them taking off. One day I will get a good picture of a small bunch of them first taking flight. 

You can see from the blurring how fast they take off. Each of those splashes behind the coot is where a foot came down as it ran on the surface of the water.

It got breezy around noontime but then the winds died down for some nice reflection photos. 

Coots.

Like fighter jets scrambling.

A nice dragonfly picture.

I believe this is an ibis. 

This one I am not too sure about. I think it's either a fish crow or a boat-tailed grackle. Donna .. help! 

A great egret.

Taking flight.

Some more coots taking off. 

It wasn't until I was previewing the pictures I took when I noticed the cardinal perched in the background to the right. The big bird is a great blue heron. 

I'm fairly certain this is a tricolored heron. 

Like I said, coots really raise a ruckus when they take off. 

Later in the day I did get a call from Dot and she was able to join me for a little ride in 'big red'. At the end of the day we were treated to this gorgeous sunset. It is hard to beat a sunset over water.  

So ended a pretty nice day on the water. Hopefully next Saturday Dot and I will get together to give 'big red' a real test on the St. Mary's river. She did agree wholeheartedly that using a tandem with two people paddling is a whole lot easier than paddling by yourself. 

Hopefully by then Charlie Bear will have recuperated enough from his grueling kayak race last Saturday to go with us. Charlie said there were 35 racers in this years race on the Suwannee river. There were seven racers in Charlie's 'recreational class'. AND CHARLIE CAME IN FIRST IN HIS CLASS! And to put it mildly it near beat him to death. 52 miles in 10 hours. When he was asked if he would do it again next year, he said he wasn't sure. But at least he did it and came in first in his class to boot. 

Jack Woodward      mailto:  jackwoodward66@hotmail.com

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