Vacation and Spoonbills

I have been off from work for a couple of days (thus no posts) for a short vacation with my children. Tomorrow though, I leave for Florida with my man to visit my Mom, who is sick. Not the reason I'd prefer to go to Florida, but I will be glad to at least be able to hug her.

I am also hoping this trip will be THE ONE. The one where I finally see the Roseate Spoonbill. I think many birders have a bird, that "elusive something", that they have always wanted to see, but just haven't been able to for one reason or another. The Spoonbill is my elusive something. It's a beautiful pinkish bird with a huge beak shaped like a....well a spoon. It is found in warmer parts of the country and it runs, er, flies, when it sees me coming. OK, maybe I am being paranoid, but every time I go to Florida and I set out to find this bird, I fail. I have tried all kinds of tactics- from the going to the place where EVERYONE sees them (Ding Darling WIldlife Refuge) to the I'm going to Florida and I am not going to even look for them tact (my attempt at using reverse psychology on the birds). Nothing works. And my Mom thinks it's hilarious. So hilarious that she sends me pictures of the birds every chance she gets. Pictures she's clipped from the newspaper with sightings near her, which are apparently numerous. She once wrote that she saw one perched atop a light pole in her neighborhood- true? I don't know. Probably, since I wasn't there at the time. The last pictures she sent were beautiful matted photos some local photographer had taken of the birds. She SAID it would be her last reference to the elusive Spoonbill. I think maybe she is starting to feel sorry for me and there are limits to how much she is willing to see her daughter suffer.

So I am off again, will I see the Spoonbill? Probably not. But the fun is in the chase I guess...?