Sleep in and Miss This?

 

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, Okeechobee, Florida  (high 71, low 38)

Our run of hot weather is over (thank goodness).  We’ve had afternoon temperatures in the mid 80’s for the past few days, and that makes it a bit too warm for afternoon hikes. 

A cold front came through last night, bringing a little rain, and now we’re going to get back to high temps in the 70’s.  Much better!  Of course it’s also going to bring in some cold night time temps, so we’ll have to have a little heat at night.

Our pattern while on the prairie always  start out with us getting in the truck before sunrise and driving the main road in search of wildlife.

We always see deer.  In fact we saw some sleeping yesterday right in the campground.   No pictures since it was pretty dark.

We love watching the sun rise over the prairie.  Some mornings are better than others.  This one was one of the best.

The full moon is waning, but still very pretty.

 

If you sleep in, you miss this!

 

After the sun rose, we went on to discover a few more interesting things.

These deer were huge and probably the biggest deer we’ve seen in Florida.  It was a bit foggy, so the picture wasn’t great.

The Eastern Meadowlark really are active in the mornings.  There were a lot of them out nearby the road, and each one singing.  It’s quite lovely with the early morning sun and hearing  many, many  Meadowlark, all  singing their own little song. 

Here is the infamous Ms. Hawk waiting in the exact same place for her man!   She seems to know me and doesn’t even bother to fly away.

A turkey vulture posing nicely.

After our morning sunrise drives, we usually take a morning hike on the prairie.

Lots of pretty flowers.

The past two nights we’ve had happy hour with fellow bloggers Tricia and Dan from Down the Road with T & D.  They are staying here for a few days before heading over to Jonathan Dickenson State Park.

It was nice to get to know you two!   See you down the road.

 

Our two weeks here are going by much too quickly.  We both love it here and will hate to leave……except that we have a trip to the Keys to look forward to!

 

and to borrow a phrase from Judy.

 

The end.

 

Tricia and Dan just stopped to say good-bye on their way out and said they saw the missile launch.  Cape Canaveral is not that far and with the dark prairie skies, it was very visible.  Bummer…we missed it.  They said it was incredible!   Oh, well.

Holy Humping Hawks!

 

 Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park  (high 80, low 54)

I am hoping I have resolved my 403 error with Google and this will post.

The weather has been perfect, and I hope it holds out because we have a lot to do before we leave.

The only problem we’ve had is that the days are too short, and we run out of day before we run out of things to do.  It’s so much nicer when the days are longer.

We’ve had some wonderful happy hours by the campfire, with a beautiful full moon.

This shot was taken through some tree branches and made the moon look kind of different, don’t you think?

Every morning, at the crack of 6:00 ish, we were up and on the road for a drive along the 5 mile campground trail. It’s still dark but the beautiful full moon lights the way. This road is a great place to see wildlife and we always see something interesting.  We always take another drive just before sunset.

During the day, we do hikes.  There are miles and miles, and miles of trails.  Two women that are camping nearby, got lost on horseback the other day.

Before daylight, we see lots of deer and rabbits and we think we saw a bobcat one morning.   I didn’t get a picture before it scooted across the road and into the prairie.

The full moon soon gives way to a foggy sunrise.

 

As the sun came up, the fog burned off and it was the beginning of another beautiful sunny day on the prairie.

We saw a flock of White Ibis.

Along the road we saw this Red Shouldered Hawk perching on a fence post.  I almost didn’t bother to stop for a photo because she didn’t really  look that pretty and I’ve seen SO many hawks on this prairie.

But…the good little photographer in me wouldn’t let me stop without a picture, and boy was I glad I did.

While I had my eye in the viewfinder taking pictures of her,  Al said another hawk flew right beside me.

He landed right on top of Ms. Hawk.

I was already focused on the female hawk so getting some action shots was easy.  Holy humping hawks!

They fooled around a little, the male flew off and then the female followed him.  We decided not to follow as I don’t think think they had finished.  :)

It’s definitely mating season in Florida. We think the Caracara are also building  nests, and we believe we have discovered where one of them is.

I’m going to keep this short to see if it will post.  Between my 403 error and slow internet, it’s been a challenge.