Winter Travels 3

January 30-February 6, 2018: Marv made reservations a bit late this year, since we were still unsure of our plans. Therefore, it was really exciting when he managed to get a week at Oscar Scherer State Park followed by 6 days at nearby Myakka State Park. Louise Sternberg had introduced us to both of these parks and they have become two of our favorites. But they are very popular, making them really hard to get reservations. The weather was just getting better and better and we had lots of sun and temperatures in the low to mid-80s. Oscar Scherer is an urban park, a small island of wilderness in the middle of the busy Sarasota-Venice area, just miles from the gorgeous Gulf beaches. All the sites are surrounded by undergrowth so they feel very private and ours backed up to the many acres of scrub oak flatwoods so it was great. We took advantage of the Pancake breakfast, ranger hikes, Friday night movies with popcorn (Groundhog’s Day with Bill Murray on Groundhog’s Day, of course), and adjacent Legacy Rail-to-Trail during our idyllic week’s stay. While there we managed to ride about 35 miles on our bikes and saw some gopher tortoises, water turtles, and lots of birds, including the resident eagles with the viewing area just about a hundred yards from our site. We also appreciated being able to do our laundry with credit card enabled machines while we watched the eagles’ nest.

Our private campsite #50

Our ride north on the Legacy Trail was about 11 miles. Along the way I
saw two gopher tortoises, a yellow necked turtle, and an osprey enjoying a meal on a branch.

We added on to an Audubon volunteer led hike, who showed us an owl's
nest with no owls in sight, near the eagles' nest.

A tri-color heron

Marv got some great shots and a video of the gopher tortoise grazing on grass.

We managed to get over to nearby Nakomis Beach, just north of Venice, for sunset and a pleasant meal of cheese, bread, wine, and smoked tuna spread. The next day the GPS took us on a wild goose chase to find the Lemon Bay Nature Preserve where we inadvertently took a l-o-n-g hike and saw the whole area because of the lack of adequate signage. Luckily it was a very pleasant day and very pretty trails.

A view of Lemon Bay from the boardwalk

We saw these little geckos everywhere.

We spent part of one afternoon sitting in the sun on the beach but with a nice
breeze we weren't enticed into the chilly water.

The day we rode south on the Legacy Trail we traveled 16 miles and went into
Venice for lunch and to visit the beach. We shared a HUGE hot fudge sundae, justified
by our long bike ride but only took this one picture of the day!

One of our days we took the state park trail on the other side of the bike trail through a big area of scrub oak flatwoods to Big Lake. We back packed a picnic lunch that we ate over looking the "Lake", left from construction of the nearby freeway.

The trail was only this wide near the beginning, right off the Legacy Trail.

We assume this is some kind of orchid but didn't know what sort. It smelled lovely!

We found this wood stork at Big Lake, along with many snowy egrets and a Great Blue Heron or two.

This is the only Scrub Jay we saw in this protected area which usually has plenty.

Our second sunset at Nakomis Beach.

Our final morning before leaving Oscar Scherer gave us our best viewing of the eagles.

If you look closely you can see both babies and one adult here.

One parent leaves as the other stands guard with one baby behind.

Both adults are vigilant parents until the babies fledge. Adults mate for life, and this female returned to the same nest with her mate for many years. Three years ago, after their babies fledged, her mate was electrocuted when he landed on high voltage wires with a wet fish. She came back to the nest the next year with a new mate and they raised babies there for two more years. They returned this year to the nest about two weeks before Hurricane Irma came ashore. Although the nest appeared undamaged, the pair built this nest within site of the other and the original nest remains vacant. It is unusual because it is in a dead tree and they nearly always prefer a live tree.