- a bird's eye view -

In the photo below, Scott is painting one of three pictures that he painted on the beach in Florida. He is so resouceful - he cobbled together his little painting set-up from things he brought and found. His paintings turned out as good as picture postcards!

It seems like everywhere we went we were surrounded by birds. Sanibel and Captiva Islands are bird refuges, and we saw more birds close-up in the past four days than probably in the past ten years. I mean it was just ridiculous how birds became such a focus. Once when I had made a run for drinks and was slow getting back. I was rushing down the path back to the beach where Scott was painting. I also had the camera in my hand. A man hurried past me and said, "If you're going to get the osprey, follow me down this path." I took me a minute - get the osprey, oh yeah, take a picture. Of course - since the man had a giant camera around his neck with an even bigger telephoto lens hanging off it. Because I was in a hurry, I didn't follow him down the jungle path. But the next day, Scott got the photo (above) that would have made that birdwatcher envious. And the photo below is a flock of seagulls that camped out right next to us as we sat on the beach at Captiva Island. There were NO seagulls anywhere on the beach except this little group - there were ten of them and they insisted on standing right there, 20 feet from our beach towels for a solid hour. Highly entertaining.