From Alligators to Key Lime Pie

Florida is so close we ended up grocery shopping there the other day.

On our day off, Terry and I took another field trip with Ed and Patty, driving east this time along the Alabama shore. This is the type of habitat along the first part of the trail in Gulf State Park. An attendant at the nature centre had warned us about alligators. "They can move 30 miles an hour," he said. 
Terry said jokingly, "First one to see an alligator gets to go to Dairy Queen!" (an ice cream shop) I raised my binoculars to scan the shoreline. "There's one...and he's HUGE!"  It looked like a log, tail on the land, and head in the water. All of a sudden he seemed to head towards us. All we could see were two eyeballs peering from the surface of the water as he advanced closer and closer.  We didn't stop to see more, but kept walking on the trail. 

After walking miles along pleasant trails, looking and listening for birds, we drove to a beach near Pensacola, Florida. It was deserted, except for a fisherman catching whiting from the shore. He had several fishing rods attached to a cart on the sand; here he is rinsing off the fish.

It wasn't an ice cream sort of day, but the four of us shared a slice of key lime pie instead, at Flounders, a seafood restaurant. It was certainly a big enough piece; actually, it looked like three pieces on top of each other.

Total bird species for the day:30, and no brand new ones. We did see a bald eagle, which wasn't yet on our trip list. A good day.