Wow! Before I forget, here is your Casual Friday post! It’s a water lily, not to be confused with a lotus flower.

These water lily’s were photographed while I was last on the Turner River with my Kayak.

I love the osprey. We have quite a few around here in South West Florida.

Not to be confused with Sea-Eagles, the North American Osprey is a large bird of prey. It’s wing span stretches 6 feet and its body averages 24 inches in length. It’s diet consists entirely of fish, which it catches by dive bombing from high altitudes and grabbing hold of with its extremely long hooked talons.

I was out on Keewadin, kayaking one morning, when this osprey caught a whiting right in front of me.

It let me get close enough to get this shot. But then flew over to another tree when it had enough of me.

Thankfully the next tree, where it started to eat the fish, was still in my line of sight. I was able to snap a few more shots before it took its meal into the estuary.

I was out kayaking one morning and came across this brown pelican. The rising sun provided a lot of warmth to the shot, and thankfully the gulf was calm enough to get a clear shot.

Here’s me messing around with the saturation levels.

If you’re near any body of water in South-West Florida, chances are your’re going to see a Double-Crested Cormorant. Not to be confused with the Anhinga, These seabirds spend their time diving underwater and swimming for their food. Since these birds are unable to waterproof their feathers, they are usually seen full-spread, drying their feathers.

This weeks CF subject is a Juvenile White Ibis. I found it in the swamp perched on the remains of a dead mangrove tree.

Enjoy the other shots in the full post.

I believe this to be a Cooter Turtle. Perhaps just a common Florida Cooter? I can’t quite tell as it is covered in algae and I didn’t want to try to catch it.

Here is an even bigger one that showed up to check me out. I think they were expecting me to feed them?

Lovely wooly coat.

Fond this guy chillin at the base of a palm tree outside my house. Almost blended right into the roots coming out the tree.

A couple more shots in the full post.