The morning is cool and sunny,

without a cloud in the sky.

I haven't seen both Bald Eagles much this week - just one, once - and it flew over the swamp too far to catch with my camera. That flashing tail as they use it for a rudder, is unmistakable. The other day I had my little camera with me across the street and in flew a Great Blue Heron. The camouflage was great. Even his beak was the color of dead cattails. Then two fisherman came down the creek and it flew. I couldn't catch it decently.

Yesterday I was out on Bear Creek - just for a short paddle - in among the submerged cypress stumps and ghostly dead trees that were alive when the creek was dammed in the '60s. I startled another blue heron, picked up my camera in a waterproof case, sun in my eyes, snapped the shutter button and took a picture of... ME! I was so angry and embarrassed at myself.
(It's a funny photo, though.) Got some pretty shots.

When I headed up the canal for home, I heard the gator grunt. He lives here on this canal, and predictably, he was grunting from somewhere in the cattails and bulrushes to my left. He is always there. I have heard descriptions of what happens to the water around a grunting male.
It vibrates and sets the water to dancing. I want to see this someday.

And then I think of that sunning female who came off the bank as I was paddling last year and scared the bejesus out of me.

Kayaking is a wonderful way to exercise your upper body. I have pain in my arms, neck and shoulder from a rear end accident. When the pain won't stop, I take a short paddle. You don't have to dip the entire paddle into the water to move easily. I find it helps a lot, and works the same muscles that the physical therapists recommended I try to strengthen.

I saw the Red-shouldered hawk sitting in one of the silver snags from the water. I thought it was an owl. It called, sending his message over the water and it left for a large pine on the shore across the water. Almost immediately, another flew over my head. I saw them both on a branch in that pine. Reason to believe that soon there will be more.