Summer Critters

Living in Florida, everyday is mixed with unusual wildlife- whether you like it or not. For starters there are the little gecko-like lizards that run around everywhere, even in your house : ) In fact, they have been doing construction near our subdivision and its chased all kinds of animals out and about...last week we saw a large gopher tortoise and a GIGANTIC Florida Cottonmouth. The Cottonmouth slithered right up to the car while Joey and I watched it for about 5 minutes straight! Of course, I didn't have my camera in either case, darn!!! I have been carrying it since and have seen nothing, nada, zippo. Anyway, enough of my chatting...here are our summer critters : )

Early this summer this dove took up residence in one of our outdoor speakers. Bill was NONE too happy!! He even was going to pressure wash its nest away, when we noticed she had laid eggs. So Bill has dealt with a dirty speaker and she has dealt with our music, haha!

and soon enough here are the little baby birds

Aren't they cute!!!

We also have a resident toad. Who must be super toad surviving our resident snake (more below) But we have seen him or her all summer

Here is Joey trying to catch it

and it jumped up on him....look at that funny face!!

a better pic, big toad must be eating all the bugs and lizards

Well here she is, our snake. My first sighting of her was about 1 1/2 yrs ago and she has been haunting our backyard ever since. I know she is a girl because her babies ran over my foot while I was mowing....I screamed VERY LOUD!!! You can see she is very long and will rear up on you when you approach. For that reason and for my sanity while Joey played out back, I finally was successful in "shoveling" her. Sorry animal lovers, she was driving me mad!!

Not sure if I posted this one before but here is our resident gator, she comes back and forth to our pond and we have seen a couple of her babies....for this reason we do not walk around ANY ponds here anymore.

More coming, Animal Kingdom Lodge, first soccer game, Summer of 09...