Today is the official opening day of Music on the Bay, I’ll be heading over for the festivities this afternoon. Looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones (which is truly my favorite part of these events).

Hope you enjoy this song from the Wheeland Brothers, who will be playing Saturday night. 🎼🏝️☀️🍺🦜😎

Music on the Bay (MOTB) kicks off today over at Whiskey Joe’s in Tampa. It’s the Tampa Bay Parrot Head Club’s largest annual fundraising event (benefitting the local Shriners Hospital). It also happens to be a fantastic outdoor music festival and the weather this week couldn’t be better (low 80s and sunny).

There are 100 Trop Rock musicians performing over the next five days, some of them I’m familiar with but there are also quite a few that I’m looking forward to hearing. But the best part? Many of my friends from Texas will also be attending, it’s going to be an absolute blast!

In honor of this I thought I’d highlight a song from one of the incredibly talented artists, Eric Erdman. 🎼🏝️☀️🦜🍺😎 Phins Up!

Found this in my reusable shopping bag last night. Westley is such a silly little dude! 💖

Some locales have delicate plants such as crocuses and trilliums that signal Spring is on the way. Down here in St. Pete, we have a large and flamboyant Pink Trumpet Tree (Tabebuia heterophylla).

This beauty creates quite a buzz every year, and not just because of all the bees that frequent it. If it was a bird it would be a flamingo because everyone flocks to see it. It truly is that stunning of a specimen!

I never know what I’m going to discover when I wander along the sand. I enjoy stumbling across fun little finds, especially when it’s art someone left behind for others to enjoy. 💖

What a fun way to wrap up a week, a Jimmy tribute band on the water near my house.

As tends to happen with these events, it was a colorful crowd full of characters (myself excluded, of course 😉).

This past Saturday I drove down to Palmetto to join a bird walk at Felt’s Audubon Preserve. I was intrigued for a couple reasons, it was a new location for me and they reported recent sightings of both Painted and Indigo Buntings.

We started off in thick fog, which wasn’t great for birding since it kept them hunkered down. There was plenty to catch my eye though, as the dew made for some fantastic sights.

By the time our guided tour wrapped up, the sun had chased off all the fog so I made another loop down the trail. I’m glad I did because I was treated to a brief sighting of a handsome male Painted Bunting (too fleeting for a photo), some Indigo Buntings, and a showy Red-bellied Woodpecker.

All in all, a lovely way to spend a muzzy morning!

This gave me a good chuckle when I spotted it in a thrift shop last week. It’s unopened, which might be a clue as to how the recipient felt about it.

Since it’s a big gift giving month, here’s some advice for the men out there, utilitarian items are never appropriate gifts (for any occasion). So, forget about the car cleaning kit and the vacuum because, as tokens of admiration, they both suck!

I was fortunate to spend time with this Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) during my visit to Key Vista Nature Park back in December.

See the sturdy claws on the front feet? They are used for digging roomy burrows (about 15′ long by 6′ wide, though they have been known to far exceed that).

Their digging skills are so impressive that they were named for them twice; Gopherus refers to the ground tunneling rodent while Polyphemus honors a Greek cave-dwelling giant.

All that earth moving must work up quite an appetite because this tortoise was focused on one thing and one thing only, eating. I dropped to my knees with my zoom lens so I could capture some shots. I was fascinated by the way its pink tongue contrasted against the dark scales and hard shell.

After 15 minutes, the tortoise ambled off into the brush and I meandered on down the trail, thankful for these protected spaces that so many wild creatures call home.

I spent some time photographing this Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) at Anclote River Park last month. This adult (it is difficult to tell the genders apart, since coloration is similar with females being slightly smaller) was just beginning to prep for breeding season, hence the yellow head and reddish bill.

The bird didn’t seem to mind the impromptu photo shoot, though it did keep an eye on me the entire time.