A Wednesday Conversation

 

“Hey there! What’s up you guys?”

“Can’t talk now. We’re in the middle of a preening session.”

“I’ve got my beady eye on you all. It would be such a shame if you fell out of that tree.”

Happy Wednesday to you all. Stay safe.

 

Silent Sunday: Big Al is on patrol

Silently he glides

A scaly sly predator

Not to be approached

Wishing you all a peaceful Sunday.

B&W Sunday Portrait: Mr. A Lives On

Paula’s B&W theme this week is a ‘Portrait’ of someone or something. Here’s someone that I really miss since he was captured and taken away by the ‘Nuisance Alligator Trappers’.

Poor Mr. A was my favourite photo model of all time, and far from being a ‘nuisance’, he just happily minded his own business, cruising  backwards and forwards in the lake outside my house. Unfortunately, my next door neighbours felt that he had no right to be there.

What a cute face he had, and sometimes I could almost imagine that he was winking at me.

Mr. A, wherever you are, I hope you’re alive and well and swimming free, or dreaming away the day, catching the rays on some muddy bank.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

 

 

Footprints in the mud

Those footprints in the mud which I posted yesterday, seemed to have many of you guessing. Hubby, being the practical man that he is, put paid to my love of all things mysterious, by saying “Oh it must have been just one of the rangers walking around down there.”  What a humdrum explanation that was, and not at all what I would like to believe! Some of my saner blog friends also came up with “human prints.” Otto’s comment which I quite enjoyed was they were “alien footprints” and The Ark who really knows about all things ancient, categorically identified them for me  “Dinosaurs obviously. Probably the species Doyouthinkhesaurus,” whilst Tandy  came up with ” a man on stilts.” Well I certainly wouldn’t go walking around down there without very tall stilts, because just under the boardwalk a bit further along, was a rather large creature with his scaly back just visible above the water.

As he came out the other side, he popped his head up for a moment.

I couldn’t see his feet, but I bet they would easily match the size of those footprints. I know that alligators have webbed toes, but maybe the web bits of the imprint had sort of collapsed  in the soft mud, and all that was left were these indentations. I rather enjoyed Sue’s comment about “a wobble-gaited mammal” which would fit perfectly for my ‘gator theory.

If the water had evaporated in one part of the marsh because of the lack of rain, then it would be necessary to walk instead of swim to an area which still had some water. Oh, this mystery of my own making is so perplexing, and I fear it may never be solved, so I think that maybe we should rather ask Big Al. I’m sure there’s not much goes on in the marsh that escapes his notice.

Happy Tuesday to you all.

 

 

 

Mr. A …… lazing on a sunny afternoon.

On our late afternoon walk through the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, we came upon this rather large sunbather, probably about twelve feet long. I know that too much sunbathing can give you skin like leather, but this is ridiculous.

If I’m not around very much over the next few days, it’s not because I’m sunbathing or have been eaten by a ‘gator. I have some writing to do for our club magazine, and have also been roped in to play the piano for the White Team’s song at the ‘Color War’ dinner on Sunday. Someone in the team has written words to the tune of Irving Berlin’s  ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’, but as you can imagine, the words don’t really fit properly, so now it’s my job to to make it sound right, and then teach it to a ‘choir’ of about a hundred elderly people. Oh the joys of being a musician among a whole lot of non-musical people. At least hubby and I are getting a free dinner out of the deal. 🙂

 

There’s a ‘Gator in my backyard.

Since our recent return to our house in Florida, I’ve been rather puzzled by the distinct lack of birdlife. Where was everybody? Even the ducks who used to float by several times a day, were absent. Mr. GBH has only put in a single appearance, just to let me know that he’s still around, and I’ve seen a couple of Great Egrets flying overhead, but other than that, the place has been sadly deserted.

Yesterday the mystery might have been solved, when this fearsome creature was seen gliding right past our back yard.

A sassy Tricolored Heron strutted along the bank, almost keeping pace with him, and seemed to be giving Mr. A the ‘evil eye’. I could almost hear him calling, “Get out of here, and leave the fishing to us birds!”

Mr. A, totally unperturbed, called back, “Here’s  looking at you, kid!” before continuing on his merry way.

I then remembered how much the same thing had happened a couple of years ago, and once ‘Mr. Smiley’ was gone, the birds all came back again.