Ready for his close up...

What a fun day today!  Hubs and I picked up Creative Carol and then met Mr. & Mrs. Sefferdog, Gaia's Child, and Mr. & Mrs. Outdoor Guy at the Florida Botanical Gardens.  We gabbed, snapped and wandered there for a few hours.  The highlight of the morning was when Hubs spotted a caterpillar - which turned out to be about 20 monarch cats all over a tropical milkweed plant.  Faster than you could say "BlipMeet", people were crouched all around the plant snapping away madly.  Total fun and a perfect Blip Moment.  

From there, we convoyed over to the Largo Nature Preserve, a favourite haunt of mine.  Which is where I got this shot.  This is a male anhinga, in his breeding feathers.  He, like the caterpillars, was extremely gracious about letting us all cluster around snapping pics.  Same can be said for the Limpkins (who clicked at us), the Wood Stork (who posed on the railing), the green heron (spotted by eagle-eyed Maura), and the Yellow-Crowned Night Heron (who tried to maintain his blase demeanor hidden in the shrubs).  All of this followed by lunch with more laughter and shared moments.  What a fun day!  We celebrated 3 birthdays (Carol's last week, mine yesterday, and Lisa's (Mrs. Outdoor Guy) today.  Can't think of a better way to spend a day.

I posted six pics starting HERE on Flickr, and I will come back later and post links to everyone else's journals once they've all posted  I've posted the links to everyone else's journal entries below!   

Creative Carol's blip
Sefferdog's Blip
Gaia's Child's Blip
Outdoor Guy's Blip


Cheers,
Debbi