THE BURROWING OWL FESTIVAL

The Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife Host the Burrowing Owl Festival

The ninth Annual Burrowing Owl Festival was held on February 26, 2011. The festival is hosted by the Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife and serves as a fundraiser to help pay for materials to help maintain the owls’ burrows, of which there are 2,500 in the city of Cape Coral. The owls are long-legged, ground-dwelling, pint-sized birds that live in open, treeless areas. They are about 9 inches tall and feed on insects, small frogs, lizards and rodents. The owl has been in Cape Coral since the 1950s, before the land began to be developed. It was flat land that was part desert and part prairie and was the perfect habitat for the burrowing owl. The owl is found in parts of Canada, states west of the Mississippi River, and south into Mexico, Central and South America. A separate subspecies of Burrowing Owl is found in Florida and the Carribean Islands. The owls can fly, but are really incredibly vulnerable because of their size (maybe 4 ounces) and their earth-bound habitat. On this festival day, there are bus tours to active burrowing owl nests, which are roped off and protected from harassment or disturbance by state law.

Bay Oaks Social Seniors arrive at the Burrowing Owl Festival on a beautiful, sunny morning in Cape Coral, Florida.

Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife sponsor this annual event.

Margie, Carmen and Cora peek out from a marine-life picture board. The picture board promotes Nature on Wheels, a traveling environmental education facility.

If you want to start an owl burrow in your yard, there is plenty of information and help available.

This is the first of several tents which house areas for live animal exhibits; children’s crafts; information about nature centers, preserves and sanctuaries; and exhibits that promote environmental stewardship.

The SW Florida Astronomical Society has assembled all kinds of telescopes and even offers “loaner telescopes” to take home with you.

A child peers through a telescope with a little help from her friends.

A man takes a look through one of the large telescopes.

Jan has some “Red Neck Barbecue.”

Owl motifs are used all over the festival grounds, even as tent anchors.

If you look closely, you can see the burrowing owl that Olivia made from a pine cone, cotton puffs, feathers and owl eyes.

Meghan offers birdhouses for children to paint. I’ve noticed that there are a lot of young people here today who are involved in conservation efforts.

Two Box turtles in the straw.

A Sulcata Tortoise, which looks like a gopher tortoise when it‘s young.

This Red Lord Amazon Parrot seems fearless.

A full-grown dwarf Nubian goat looks for grass to nibble on.

Donna displays information on worm composting.

Peyton treats this corn snake with tender, loving care.
 

A child views a cutaway display of a honeybee hive. Of course, there’s honey to purchase nearby.

“Homeward Bound Greyhounds” is a rescue and adoption agency that takes care of greyhounds. This greyhound was completely calm and gentle even though everyone, including me, wanted to pet him.

A manatee skeleton illustrates the size of these fascinating, friendly, and very large animals.

 

An Eastern screech owl gazes out of his cage.

A representative points out the location of Six-Mile Cypress Slough to an interested visitor.


 

The owl motif recurs in the garden near the Butterfly House.

 

The Butterfly House

A white butterfly on a white butterfly bush.

The Butterfly House guide.

The Butterfly House guide with Monarch butterfly nails.

The state butterfly is painted on a bench.

A real zebra longwing, the Florida state butterfly, is on the ceiling of the Butterfly House.

The Seniors are assembling to go home.

We don’t go straight home. We stop to visit some actual burrows, which are roped off.

We gather to view one of the burrows with no luck. It’s 2:00 in the afternoon, it’s 80 degrees out, and there are a bunch of people creating a din outside their homes. No wonder the owls stay in hiding.

 

Aha! We spot an owl deep within another burrow.

This little guy has no plans to come out any farther, but we have seen what we came to see.

Mission accomplished, and we can go back home now. Good-bye, Burrowing Owls for this year!

KAYAKING FROM PORT SANIBEL MARINA

Kayaking from Port Sanibel Marina

On a beautiful day in February, Bay Oaks Social Seniors with their kayaks in tow took a trip to Port Sanibel Marina. The Marina is located one mile before the toll bridge leading to Sanibel Island in the southwestern tip of Lee County in Fort Myers, Florida. Personnel from Bay Oaks Recreation Campus accompanied the group to assist with unloading and then loading the kayaks back up on the trailer. Everyone helps get the kayaks from the trailer to the launch site. There are lovely homes along the waterway, but kayaks must share this route with power boats whose home base is the marina. Power boats are guided by red and green pylons along the way, so those in kayaks know where the boats will be passing by, and they must get out of the way. Some paddlers among the seniors are seasoned kayakers, but some aren’t. Justin, our trip leader, tries to pair up experienced with inexperienced kayakers. I’m no pro, but I’ve found paddling a kayak to be a relatively easy skill to learn, and it’s not physically challenging, either. What IS challenging is getting in and out of the kayak, but there are always people around to help you with that. Being in a kayak is a very calming experience. While you are afloat on the water, the only sound is the water lapping against your kayak and your oars. Whether you are sitting still or skimming along the surface of the water, you are in control of where you want to go and how fast you want to get there. If you want to stop and rest or stop and admire your surroundings or wildlife, you can do that at will. For myself, I stop and take photos, and it’s not always a calming experience for my kayak partner because I ask my partner to maneuver the kayak at just the right angle to get the shot I want. On this day, after we all got back to the marina, we went to the Lighthouse Restaurant for lunch. The restaurant is adjacent to the marina, and the grounds are beautifully landscaped. During lunch we had a dockside view of wildlife, lush tropical foliage, and million-dollar yachts. The food was good, too.

Port Sanibel Marina Welcome Sign

Our van arrives pulling a trailer loaded with kayaks.

Natasha and Sarah, Bay Oaks Personnel, unload kayaks.

Robert is vested up and ready to kayak.

Kayaks are lined up at the marina launch site.

Sarah and John carry a kayak from the trailer to the launch site.

Carmen has her oar and is ready to go as the kayaks are being launched.

John and Lu are awaiting their turn to get into their kayak.

Marlene and trip leader Justin will be kayak partners.

The kayaks are headed out onto the waterway with the marina in the background.

Carol and Mary Kay leaving the marina.

All of the kayaks are underway

The pink and magenta bougainvillea in the yard of this waterway home is stunning.

Power boats rule the waterway, and kayaks must get out of the way.

Judy and Natasha skim along the water in their kayak.

Everyone is out on the blue and planning to circle the small island in the background.

Margie and Carmen are headed toward my kayak instead of out to sea.

All is A-OK  with Marlene and Justin, but who is doing the serious paddling here?

Irene and Mary sit back and enjoy the ride.

A beautiful home on the waterway, even if it IS pink. We see this home and others as we are making our way back to the marina.

Another beautiful home on the waterway.

Jan brought her own kayak and gets a hand from Margie to put it up on the car roof.

We had lunch at the Lighthouse Restaurant, which is adjacent to the marina. The front of the restaurant is very nicely landscaped, and the back overlooks the docks.

This is the landscaped area in front of the restaurant.

We approach the restaurant by way of a walk next to this magnificent orchid tree.

Margie, Judy, and 2 Bay Oaks guests in the restaurant.

Richard, Marilyn, Lu and John get ready to order lunch.

Mary, Irene, Justin and Natasha ready to order lunch.

Sarah, Carmen, Marlene and Jan waiting for their lunch.

Joann and Dan are experienced kayakers, you can tell. Check out their tee shirts.

And so ends a Bay Oaks Seniors' kayaking day at Port Sanibel Marina.