Naples, Florida is for the Birds.

1-25-09 NAPLES, FLORIDA: It’s our second annual visit to the land of winter sun courtesy of Ken and Carol. Naples is a tidy, affluent, very affluent, Gulf shore city host to many golf courses and many boats. We have also found that it’s a bird and birder’s paradise. Saturday we visited the Corkscrew Preserve, an Audubon site, an saw several wading birds. The preserve has a boardwalk, about two miles long through the mostly marshy habitat with several vantage points. We saw an alligator and white ibis, great heron, anhinga, yellow crowned night heron, black crowned night heron, nesting wood storks in the distance, snowy egret, red shouldered hawk, turkey vulture and great blue heron. Back in Naples, we saw lots of pelicans, eagles including two immatures in the neighborhood nest, coromorants and the usual shore birds.

We got a little sun, some great meals and hospitality and an afternoon boat ride.


Corkscrew Preserve has many bald cypress, those things that look like stumps are cypress 'knees'.


Great Egret on the left and White Ibis on the right.