Day 29 Captiva

Today is Sunday, so that means a trip to the Farmers' Market in Sanibel.  Since it was a cool morning - in the 60's - we dressed in long pants and long sleeves when we left at 9 am.  The market was very crowded and with even more dogs this week.  We shopped for strawberries, tomatoes, okra, green beans, arugula, onion, mushrooms, and fresh cut flowers.   Then made a quick stop at Bailey's Store for pastries, milk, juice, bread, and wine.  Now we had all the basics covered.

I decided that we should stop at Ding Darling at 11:30 to walk out on the Indigo Trail to the Wildlife Education Boardwalk and Al went along willingly  for the walk.  And it was worth the walk.

As we arrived to the boardwalk, we were told to look for a large  alligator on the side.  Everyone seems so fascinated by gators.  And yes we did find the gator on the bank beneath the bridge:

Al took this photo:

 An I took these shots from another location:

 And then a close up of Mr. Smiley:

But there lots more to see here than the gator.  We saw moorhens, ibis, tri-colored heron, roseate spoonbill, kingfisher, great egret, and most exciting yellow-crowned night herons and their nest.

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Click on arrow:

The kingfisher was quite away from the deck but we got fair photos:

The roseate spoonbill was very near the kingfisher:

Photos of the yellow-crowned night herons.  Al got the best shots of the nest:

 I shot this one across from the nest sunning with his wings spread out.

And this green heron appeared on the bank near the alligator just as we were leaving:

We enjoyed getting to photogaph some great birds but we had to deal with some rather rude photographers who bullied their way in front of other photographers and were very noisy and talkative (using their loud voices) as if they were the only ones there.
Back to the cottage by 1:00 for lunch of ham on rye sandwiches with chips and cold beer.  I blogged away the afternoon almost catching up with our Captiva Days blog.

Dinner this evening was Pork Stroganoff .....I just happened to have all the ingredients needed to go with pork leftovers to prepare that dish.  Served with arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette. Enjoyed with glasses of wine.