southernxyl

Sunday, February 21, 2010

This is the Weekend to Get Outside
Published: Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 8:25 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 8:25 a.m.
If you've been waiting for the weekend to get outside, today is the day.

There's only a 10 percent chance of showers and the temperatures may even hit the low 70s. Not what the average for this time of year is - 72 to 74 - but better than the 30s Polk County had earlier this week.

Sunday is good, too, according to Bay News 9 forecasters but all good things come to an end.

There's a 60 percent chance of rain on Monday and another cold front headed this way.

The birds read the newspaper Saturday.

This bird has the most delicate feathery veil that extends past the more sturdy tail feathers. As with all of these, you can click to enlarge.

The pelicans get bumps on their beaks during breeding season, apparently.

Sometimes we just like to stand around on one leg.

In the background, you can see the black swan nesting. In the foreground, you can see the mate shooing us away.

It's hard to see here (I didn't want to get closer and disturb them) but two of these storks are sitting on the ground with their knees bent and their feet stuck straight out in front. I have not seen this before.

Turtles were loving the sun.

This really doesn't look like an urban lake, does it? But it's right downtown.

Gratuitous swan pic, with cygnet in the background.

Another gratuitous swan pic

Then today (well, yesterday now) we went to Clearwater. It was a bit cooler than Saturday, but lots of people at the beach.

Here's a pirate ship.

You can't see here how pretty the colors of the sea and the sky were.

And we saw dolphins, for the first time. I first saw something big come out of the water and go back down, and told R and pointed. We watched until it happened again - there were two or three of them surfacing together. Subsequently we saw them a few times, mostly in the wake of a boat. It seems they like to follow boats around; the wake feels good to them or something. If you maximize this video and look real hard, at about 26 or 27 seconds you can see one.