It’s a cold (for Florida) and windy day and we decide it would be nice to go check out a Photography exhibit by local artist Dr. Harry Moulis, a physician from Port Orange who happens to be an accomplished photographer. Last week, Sharon and I discovered a tiny park in Port Orange along Sleepy Hollow Drive. We had plenty of Yellow-rumps the last time we visited and figured we’d just take a quick look around to see if anything new had decided to drop in for a while. What we did find were dragonflies…..hundreds of them.
The birds were few and far between, I figure due to the high winds. After photographing one of the myriad of Pondhawks, we continued onto our destination, the Museum of Arts an Science in Daytona.
Before we could get into the front door, we were greeted by a fine Red-shouldered hawk, the default hawk of Florida. A couple of quick photos, even though I’ve probably photographed more than a hundred in Florida this year alone, and we headed on into the museum to see the marvelous works of Dr. Moulis.
After spending several hours at the museum, we walked around the grounds of the museum which can be quite good for migrants. Again the winds prevailed and we found precious few birds of any species. As we were ready to head on home, I heard the easily identified song of a Northern parula. I had just photographed one a few days ago, but our friends from New York had never seen one and I decided it was a must for them. Sure enough, with a little perseverance (and a bit of phishing), the bird came down to check us out. Deep in the foliage and in the waning hours of daylight, a flash was needed to bring the bird into enough light to give us a good look and a decent photo. What could have been a day with little to remember as far as the birds went quickly turned into one to be relished.
As a final aside, when we were driving out along the access road from the museum, we happened upon a gentleman walking six dogs. We couldn’t help but notice that the dogs were all in a line, all in step, and all most obedient. We stopped to talk with the walker and found that he has a dog obedience school in Daytona called Russel’s Canine Academy. When we stopped to talk with him, all the dogs immediately stopped with him, sat and remained motionless as he spoke to us. I thought of our birding friend and club member Ken who is a world renowned judge at Dog Shows. I know Ken has high standards, but I think that he too would have been impressed with the complete “respect” this gentleman’s dogs had for him. One thing we’ve found out about birding is that you never know what the day will bring when we are out in the field. This repartee with the dog trainer certainly added to the delight of our afternoon.
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