Paddleing the Wacissa River.....Eagles eating GBH? and The Big White Birds have landed.

Howdee all,

Yesterday we paddled down the Wacissa River with Dennis aka...Gator bait and his daughter Rhonda whom met the day before at Wakula Springs.
Dennis has paddled this river before........so we were in good hands.....besides....its always good to travel Gator country with bait..

The Wacissa is a clear spring fed stream ..12 springs according to this website.

Jeff and I haven't paddled in ...humm..... a long time. Thank goodness this was nice flat water.
No rapids..just a little wind to contend with.
We did hit one tree...it survived.

The scenery was beautiful and we saw great birds...Have you ever tried looking thru binos while on a canoe? Not easy...so looking at warblers was out of the question..


We saw at least 7 Bald Eagle,Red shouldered Hawks, Lots of Herons, Egrets, Ibis, Coots, Morehens, and the usual suspects. Heard a Limpkin.
But the real treat for us was The Swallow tail Kite a life bird for us.
No birdie photos. We just enjoyed the viewing with our eyes.

What you don't see here is Jeff and I bickering with each other for the first half hour...each blaming the other for not paddling correctly....finally Jeff admitted he didnt know why his steering wasn't working...and we happily paddled away ...I had to work xtra hard to help steer when we got off course!

We did see Alligators...several crossing the water before us...YIKES ....Luckily Gator Bait was in the lead!


It was a splendid day.
But the 10 miles had my arms
aching ..not muscle ache...just a dull all over ache.....I had to apply copious amounts of Ben gay type lotion, heating pad, and two Excedrin...went to sleep and woke up with no pain.
Thanks Dennis and Rhonda...for a great Day!


Today we had a late start.....We've done just about every trail at St. Marks wildlife refugee...So we decided to do a five miler that we hadn't done...It wasn't that interesting..but we did get some exercise. We later went to our favorite birdie viewing area location 130....
Where I spotted this Bald Eagle chowing down.... and Turkey Vultures waiting for the leftovers...
I was curious to see what it was eating...The eagle left and what i could see looked to me to be the carcass of a Great Blue Heron. Does anyone know if Eagle kill Great Blue Heron?



After checking out the Eagle we walked a bit further and scoped the area for birds.
Whats this flying in????


Oh..Cool...we have been here two weeks and this is the first time we have seen the White Pelicans at St. Marks.. there must be at least 100 here.....



I am wondering if they are starting to Migrate norther..

We are headed north in a week....Migrating with the Birdies...