It’s been over a month since we got back from Florida, so I guess you could say that I’m procrastinating a little bit about showing you some pics. I took well over 30k pics in the 6 weeks we were there, but I promise I won’t make you look at every single one!
And I’m going to start by showing you pics of my favorite subject of the whole trip, the Sandhill Crane. As always, click on the images to enlarge.

Sandhills seem to be creatures of habit because they could usually be found in the same place in the marsh every day, unless they were disturbed. So, we were fortunate that we would find them in the same general area pretty much whenever we went to visit them. Or as we were to find out, when they visited us! As long as we didn’t move much or make any commotion, these birds showed no real fear of us, even with a young colt to take care of.

Wandered a little too far away from Mom and got scared and went running back to her!

This first pic of the colt is when he was just starting to find his way around behind Mom and Dad. No real feathers yet, but you can see the primaries starting to form

And the pic just above shows the amount of growth in 6 weeks. Almost as tall as the parents, with primary flight feathers looking good. This kid is not far away from flying!

The colt never did fly before we left. The family had to cross a small creek every morning to get to their feeding area. No big deal for the parents, but the colt was forced to swim across the small creek! And there are Gators in that area!

So if I am lucky enough to go back again next year, you know where I’ll be!!!

Now get out there, get your pictures and share them with us!