One of the state parks we went to in Florida was Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, which had all of these interesting trees. The tree appear to send out 'roots' from their limbs that grow back down to the ground. Really strange, but beautiful!
During our recent road trip around Florida, we saw lots and lots of birds. Before the trip I bought a cheap pair of binoculars and a field guide of Florida birds, to see if that might be an activity we enjoyed. Turned out we loved it! It was a lot of fun trying to identify all the birds we found - Carter said it felt like trying to catch Pokemon. :) Over the course of the trip we identified over 50 species of birds (and probably saw another dozen or so we didn't identify). Once we got back home we bought a few bird feeders and hung them up around the house, and we've also been going for walks at nearby state parks the last few weekends to look for birds around here too. It's been a lot of fun, and gets me a lot of outdoor time - so I'm definitely not complaining! The bird shown here is an Anhinga - the cool thing about them is that their feathers aren't oily (like a duck), so when they swim to catch fish their feathers get waterlogged, and they have to spread them out in the sun to dry them out again. I love how it looks like he's posing for the photo - he's a handsome devil and he knows it!
