Murder by Death

We're off to Bouchercon tomorrow, eagerly anticipating our first (and hopefully not last) book convention.  I'm behind on all my reading as I'd expected, but the upside is I have an insane number of new books acquired, with more expected at the conference.

But is hasn't all been books - there have been at least as many birds and a ridiculous number of bird pictures taken - along with some typical Florida scenery (in my part of Florida anyway).  I've tried to cull the pics to the most interesting - but you should totally skip this post if you're not into other people's holidays.

First, the beach:

and the bay:

The wildlife of the non-feathered variety:

and, the birds - a very select few from the insane amount of pictures I've taken.  Mostly marsh birds.

We'll start with my favorite bird of this trip, the Black-bellied Whistler Duck, which as its name implies, whistles.  Not a quacker, this one - and it like to roost in trees, or power-lines:

They also seem to be open minded in terms of inter-species friendships.  

Something about this shot makes me laugh... like they're the Secret Service of ducks.

Next, a Snowy Egret and a juvenile Black Crowned Night Egret:

And what I think is a Grey Heron, but the white splotch on his wing is confounding me:

While I was sitting at the small pond catching photos of all these birds, I was approached by a friendly, if slightly less photogenic Wood Stork:

I named it Woody.  Because it was 7.30am and it was pre-caffeine.

Probably the coup of the trip so far is a Short-tailed Hawk that struck a pose for me:

and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker (whose belly is, in fact, not red):

I used my camera's remote function to capture this photo at mom's squirrel proof bird feeder.

Squirrel proof you say?  I laugh at your squirrel proofing... nom, nom, nom.

Ok, that's it.  No more vacation photos.  Probably.  Maybe some Bouchercon photos.  Possibly a Key West sunset or something, but I swear, NOTHING as obnoxious as this post.