colincroft's Identifications

With Valeri Ponzo; Day 2 of our 3-day Thanksgiving holiday trip to the eastern Panhandle.

Our itinerary for Day 2 was:

0655-1008 CST: Chipola River Water Management Area (Calhoun County; return trip from yesterday)

1016-1118 CST: Altha Park (Calhoun County)

1122-1153 CST: Mount Olive Cemetery Road (Calhoun County)

1245-1304 CST: lunch at the Blountstown Subway (Calhoun County)

1335-1343 CST: Willis Bridge Park (Calhoun County; 1 species!)

1400-1506 CST: Chipola River Boat Ramp (Calhoun County)

1615-1708 CST: Sam Atkins Park (Calhoun County; we got rained out)

1845 CST: we checked into the Apalachicola Bay Inn (Franklin County). We ate at a rather pricey restaurant in Apalachicola, where all food was served in Styrofoam containers and plasticware, which was all thrown into the trash when we were finished; weird.

We barely saw the sun on any of the three days; most photographs were taken under gloomy skies, which meant that I often had to boost the light saturation to get a usable image, even if the image ended up looking washed-out.

Val and I have set a goal of attaining 50 or more bird species in each of Florida's 67 counties (Val has reached or exceeded this total in 57 counties, while I have reached or exceeded 50 species in 56 counties). Calhoun County was our primary target this trip; we each started the trip with 14 species. Owing to Val's much-better hearing than mine, Val ended this day with 51 species, while I ended up with 45.