Union of the Birds, Ch. 1: Touring FL

Laura and I were so excited that Katie had found Richard Bird and that they were in love and to be married!  We looked forward to going to Florida to attend their wedding and join them on their wedding cruise reception.  So, as excited as we were that Laura was pregnant, we were a bit disappointed when we realized that she would be eight months pregnant at the time of the wedding, and thus, unable to go on the cruise.  We debated driving to the wedding (air travel also prohibited), but it would be a long drive with lots of pee breaks for a 15-minute ceremony.  Katie sweetly convinced Laura not to make the trip for the short wedding alone, and Laura sweetly convinced me to go without her.

I love adventures, but they are more fun with someone to share them with.  Because my favorite travel partner was out, I decided to invite a friend.  Over the last year or two, Mikie has been such a positive person in my life and has always been intrigued and excited to hear about our travels when it would be so easy to be jealous and bitter.  He had hardly traveled anywhere, barring a couple road trips and a field season in the southwest US.

So, I called Mikie and asked what he was doing on the dates of the cruise.  He said he was likely free, and I asked if he could guarantee he'd be free.  I explained why and he just kept asking if this was one of my famous pranks.  I elaborated that it would violate my pranking rules (I am opposed to pranks that hype up and then let people down) and that this was for real.  He just couldn't believe it and it took a while for it to sink in.  If you've ever met Mikie, you can imagine his excitement level! I told him to not look into the trip much, so he'd be surprised by the ship and ports, but that I had everything planned for us to do and he just had to come for the ride.  Laura even had the bright idea to go two days early so we could make sure to make the wedding and also tour Florida a bit while we were there.  I just knew where I had to take Mikie, the herpetologist, during our time in FL, so off we went!  

Mikie had only been on one other flight, so he was still mesmerized that we were in a giant metal tube about to go thousands of feet into the air!




1st stop: Sonny's BBQ, of course! 


After stocking up on provisions at Publix, we headed to the AirBnB in Cocoa and got some sleep.  The next morning, we got up before dawn and headed to Tosohatchee WMA.  It was the opening day of deer gun season, so we went to the part of the WMA that is closed to hunting, which I had never been to.  The trail that we planned to take was flooded out, but we did a fun bushwhacking loop through oak/palm groves, or as Mikie described it, "Jurassic Park".













We saw dozens of wild pigs.  They were not very wary, allowing us to walk within 20 yards most times before running another 50 and stopping again.  This area only gets hunted a little bit each year during the hog special season, so I bet they are pretty comfortable the rest of the year.

We didn't make it to the St. John's River on this hike, but I knew we could within the WMA hunting areas.  It was 10am, so we donned blaze orange and drove into the WMA.  I was surprised how few people were in there hunting compared to turkey season.  Of course, FL is no mecca for deer.

The river was the goal, so we drove straight down to the water and the gators were in place for Mikie. Fortunately for the gator, the mud was too deep for Mikie to cross and cuddle with her.


We did a clockwise loop hike from that parking lot, back around to the road.  I even managed to get a picture of a "waterfall" in Florida!







And then it happened!  Mikie stopped us in our tracks and got down in the grass.  He did it!  Micah and I had hiked miles of this place during turkey season, and I don't remember seeing any snakes.  But Mikie, the herp nut, found a lifer species!  He spent a while sitting with and photographing this pygmy rattlesnake and was like a kid on Christmas!


Closeups credit to Mikie. 11 pictures of the snake encounter may seem excessive, but it is hard to cut this down any more and still represent the joy that Mikie had in seeing this snake! 










We also got to see a congregation of baby alligators!  Look hard and you should find a few in the picture.  There were maybe 10, but they mostly got away before I took the picture.


Then we drove around the WMA to see the different habitats that result from slight topographic changes.




We headed to get lunch at Lone Cabbage.  Mikie had a dolphin Reuben, aka "the BEST reuben he had ever had" and I enjoyed some clam strips. Then I drove up towards Merritt Island while Mikie recovered from all the excitement.



We did the loop around Black Point Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island NWR and saw plenty of birds and a few gators:











Driving from there to Canaveral National Seashore, we saw some Scrub Jays, which I hadn't ever seen before:




Then we went to see the sea.  We found one of the lots with only one other car and headed out.  We enjoyed the waves, the shorebirds, and the shore.  We even napped on the beach for about 45 minutes to kill time before dinner.



I kept picking up sargassum and shaking it out into my hand, hoping to show Mikie some of the cool critters that make the floating algae their homes.  Alas, nothing.  Mikie even asked at one point if this was another one of my weird jokes.  Sadly, there was more plastic than fauna in the weeds.


So many shorebird pics:














And then a little bit of landscape and abstract photography:








Finally, we headed to El Leoncito, which I had been looking forward to since my last encounter with the restaurant during turkey season.  This time, I did not blunder and instead went straight for the whole fried snapper.  Mmmmmmm...









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