martinzoo

Well, all good things must come to an end. Today is our last day. I’m so happy that I got to see my good friends, but also sad because I know that it will be a long time before I get to see them again.

Since we were kinda pooped out from the last two days, we decided to take an easy day. We were *almost* tempted to make a quick trip over to Universal Studios Theme park, since some nice lady gave Mary some free tickets when we were at Gatorland the other day. BUT pooped is pooped. So we decided to stick to our original plan and go visit the Birds of Prey Center at the Audubon of Florida.

On June 14, 1979, Audubon staff member Doris Mager (see picture) climbed into an inactive Bald Eagle nest in Central Florida. She stayed there for six days and five nights, to raise awareness of the plight of the Bald Eagle and to raise funds to build the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey. The Center opened on October 19, 1979. Since then they have treated over 12,000 injured or orphaned birds of prey (raptors), releasing more than 40% of these former patients back into the wild. Isn’t that amazing!! I love that story!

An American Bald Eagle (Btw, we learned that ‘bald’ actually meant ‘white-headed’ in old English - now it makes more sense)

White-tailed Kite

Swallow-tail Kite

Merlin

Crested Caracara

Hahahaha! ……… He sounds like me and my girlfriends chattering……….LOL!!

Black Vulture

Barn Owls

Barred Owls

Fish bed~ I had never seen fish do this before, make a little hole to nest in, but I saw them do it everywhere we went.

I like this picture of the kids from behind. It’s gonna take a while to get used to thinking of GB as one of the bigger kids now.

Here are our troops! Precious!

And the gal pals! Mary, me and Carol!

This was the inside of an Eagle’s nest. If you look closely you can see some terrible things. Birds will use what they can find to build their nests, and sometimes they find bad things like this soda can holder and right in the center of the nest is some coiled wire (to the left of the eggs.) Lots of Spanish moss in there, too.

Here is GB in front of the nest to give you some perspective on how big it was.

Osprey

Kestrel

This is a picture of one of the baby eaglets they try to raise and release back to the wild.

I thought the Spanish Moss was so pretty, but Mary told me that it can actually kill the tree it attaches itself to. What a shame.

After the Birds of Prey, we decided to go to a nearby playground to let the kids play while we got one last chat in.

And if I’m lucky, someday, maybe GB will make this little cutie his wife, and my friend and I can be legally family………LOL!

We still had more time before my plane arrived, so we headed to Borders Book Store. I’ve never been to one before, and you know how much I love book stores. So I was totally up for it. GB got a huge book on World Wars to read on the airplane and the clerk didn’t even flinch when I asked if I could have a teacher’s discount. Isn’t that great?

Here is Carol’s oldest daughter, my little dear heart! She is reading to all the littles so the moms can chat and browse.

I love my friends, and I’m sad to go. But I can’t wait to see them again next time! LOVE YOU BUNCHES!