{"id":105877,"date":"2025-02-07T08:50:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T13:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/?p=105877"},"modified":"2026-01-26T22:48:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T03:48:48","slug":"a-couple-of-recent-trips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/07\/a-couple-of-recent-trips\/florida\/","title":{"rendered":"A Couple of Recent Trips"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last week Pam and I took a quick trip over to Lakeland to meet up with an old friend from Canada who spends the winters with his wife and dogs in Florida. We met him at Lake Morton, which is one of our favorite bird spots in the region. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were a lot of ducks present. We only saw a couple of wood ducks, which was a little disappointing, but there were several ringed-neck ducks and a stunning male redhead duck that provided some great photo opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-5-male-redhead-duck-slowly-swimming-past.jpg\" alt=\"Male Redhead Duck Slowly Swimming Past\" class=\"wp-image-105813\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-5-male-redhead-duck-slowly-swimming-past.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-5-male-redhead-duck-slowly-swimming-past-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-5-male-redhead-duck-slowly-swimming-past-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-5-male-redhead-duck-slowly-swimming-past-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-5-male-redhead-duck-slowly-swimming-past-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-5-male-redhead-duck-slowly-swimming-past-2048x1366.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Male Redhead Duck Slowly Swimming Past<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:24px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Lake Morton is also known for its population of swans, and we saw several mute swans and black swans. There were even some new black swan cygnets in the breeding pens. It was a good day for pictures and to catch up with a friend. On the way home we got to eat lunch at Cheddar\u2019s, which is one of favorite restaurants. After a delicious meal, we headed over to Plant City to pick up a flat of fresh strawberries. Yum! Just a fun day all around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-3-black-swan-cygnets-resting.jpg\" alt=\"Black Swan Cygnets Resting\" class=\"wp-image-105817\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-3-black-swan-cygnets-resting.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-3-black-swan-cygnets-resting-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-3-black-swan-cygnets-resting-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-3-black-swan-cygnets-resting-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-3-black-swan-cygnets-resting-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-3-black-swan-cygnets-resting-2048x1366.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Black Swan Cygnets Resting<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:24px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>A few days later we headed to another one of our favorite bird spots in Sarasota. The Celery Fields nature preserve is a designated Audubon sanctuary and is home to a large variety of birds. One of the highlights of the morning was photographing the nanday parakeets at the feeders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250203-4-nanday-parakeet-finishing-up-drink.jpg\" alt=\"Nanday Parakeet Finishing Up Drink\" class=\"wp-image-105821\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250203-4-nanday-parakeet-finishing-up-drink.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250203-4-nanday-parakeet-finishing-up-drink-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250203-4-nanday-parakeet-finishing-up-drink-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250203-4-nanday-parakeet-finishing-up-drink-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250203-4-nanday-parakeet-finishing-up-drink-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250203-4-nanday-parakeet-finishing-up-drink-2048x1366.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Nanday Parakeet Finishing Up a Drink<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week Pam and I took a quick trip over to Lakeland to meet up with an old friend from Canada who spends the winters with his wife and dogs in Florida. We met him at Lake Morton, which is one of our favorite bird spots in the region. It was a beautiful sunny day&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2743],"tags":[2774],"class_list":["post-105877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-florida","tag-nature"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/250130-4-pair-of-black-swans-playing-in-water.jpg?ver","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105877"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109255,"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105877\/revisions\/109255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flgcc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}