Saturday, Nov 8 - Monday, November 10

On Saturday Ruth and I hit a few thrift shops and bought a few bargains.  Dinner at home was roasted  chicken and root vegetables, salad and berry pie!  Yum.

 

On Sunday, the took us for a drive on the "loop" - north in Ormond and then to Ormond by the Sea and back.  Beautiful!

On the loop is the Bulow Plantation Historic State Park.  Another National Gold Medal Winner for this Florida State Park.  This was a 4675 acre planation growing and processing sugar cane, cotton, rice and indigo.  It prospered from 1821 until the outbreak of the Second Seminole War when Bulowville was burned along with other nearby plantations in 1836.  This is the beautiful drive into the plantation

 

 

The remains of the coquina sugar mill.  We walked around the ruins and checked out the display showing how the plantation looked and how the cane was processed.

 

As we drove further on the loop road, we can upon a swampy area with hundreds of birds!  Wow!



Saw five species of birds in one place!  Large Egret, immature Little Blue Heron, Snowy Egret,Wood Stork and Whit Ibis (a new one for me)!

Great Egret and Wood Stork

And a Tricolor Heron - a new one for me!
 



Hard to tell how many birds there are with the wonderful reflections/  Another bystander said that the water is so muddy because he wild pigs come at night to root around for food and stir all the mud up from the bottom.

 

We spent about a half hour watching the birds - fascinating how they are all living together!  Watched some fish along the bottom for goodies.  Left there and proceeded to Ormond by the Sea to Betty's for late lunch!

 

Shrimp boat spotted in the ocean across the road from Betty's.

John, Ruth and I had the seafood cake and their famous onion rings!  I had clam chowder as one of my sides - the best I've ever eaten!  Jerry had the fabulous marinated beef tips!
 
Not long after arriving home from our tour.

 

 

Not long after arriving back home after our driving tour, Ruth yelled for me to come to the back yard.  The Sandhill Cranes are back from Wisconsin!  (First time seeing them up close!)  They weren't very afraid, and we were able to get very close while feeding them bread scraps.  Ruth puts food out daily for the wild turkeys and whoever else comes by.  They checked out the food stump before rooting in the ground for insects.

 

Beautiful eyes and feathers.

So blessed to see so many beautiful examples of birds today!  What fabulous hosts we have!