It was a beautiful weekend in Southwest Florida to take the time to stop and remember all those who have served this wonderful country and given their lives for our freedom.
I have seen several of these beautiful Swallow-Tailed Kites flying very low when I don't have a camera with me. This one is probably closer that the other photos I've actually taken, but still not close enough! One of these days, I'll get a better pic of one!
The butterflies love this Firebush by our back deck! They share it with lots of bees, too!
Ha! The butterfly below seems to have sat down on the job to take a break from the heat.
Whew, lady! It is freaking hot out here!!
I can't pass up a cute duck!
Birds are always in abundance at the beach!
The photo below shows a new sea turtle nest at the beach. I took this angle because you can see the tracks from the water to the nest on one side of the photo and then back to the water down the other side. You can see from the width of the tracks, these are not small turtles laying these eggs!
The sea turtle research people place metal grates over the nests to try to keep out predators, such as the coyote that roam the island.
As we were leaving the beach, two people from Sea Turtle Research drove up to check out a new nest. The tracks were coming out of the water and back in, with what looked like a nest area. They start by digging in the sand to make sure the turtle laid some eggs. If there are no eggs, it is called a "false crawl".