I had a conversation with my wife about how I was going to find the time and even the space to post all the great pictures I had taken today. I decided that it was going to be an impossibility to do justice to today. I have literally spent the last 3 or more hours sorting through, in excess of  500 pictures taken today and I have selected a few to give you a flavour of this great day. First of all, as you are reading and looking perhaps you would like to try and guess whose eye this could belong to?

It all started at around 8 this morning when, as I drove to my favorite destination for my early morning walk, I stopped because I had never seen so many Turkey Vultures so close to the roadside. It turned out they were just hanging around like a bunch of rowdy louts, in actual fact they are
  magnificent birds of prey with very ugly faces, but with stunning plumage. What I hadn't realised that amongst the Turkeys there was at least 3 Black Vultures, less common, smaller and not so grotesque in the face department. (Or perhaps you disagree)? Anyway, can you believe I got that close?  The Turkey Vultures even though larger, played second fiddle to the more dominant Blacks.

The eye above belongs to a Sandhill Crane. Probably the same pair of birds that I saw last year were at one of my favourite locations……….  Everglades Holiday Park. They were just wandering around the camp-site and allowing really close inspection, in fact too close most of the time especially when they started to "dance" in their ritual courtship display. It was really hard to capture on film because I couldn't get far enough from the birds very easily. But I did manage one good shot of the male jumping around.

Purple Gallinule are just about the most colourful bird that I have ever seen. I adore them!!!!!!!!!  They have bright yellow legs, a purple iridescent body and a yellow and bright red beak……. stunning.