What has been your most interesting run-in with nature (wildlife) (Spring Hill: for sale, movies) - Tampa Bay - Florida (FL) -Tampa - St. Petersburg - Clearwater - Page 8 - City-Data Forum

Spring Hillian · 04-25-2014, 03:50 PM

valicky - I uploaded 3 pics to a public photo album called "cayman". Check it out.

Spring Hillian · 04-25-2014, 04:05 PM

Sounds great Crash. I have a pic of my wife swimming with a barracuda nearby in Cozumel Mexico. She had no idea it was there. I did a lot of snorkeling in the East China Sea off Okinawa and besides schools of beautiful fish, didnt see much else. :-(

Have seen gators and otters on the Weeki Wachee river and the Witalacoohee (sp).

The Nature Coast, where Spring Hill is, is a bird sanctuary but I havent gone birding more than once.

We get groups of Sandhill Cranes in the neighborhood. They come by to pick the bugs out of the
lawns. Nice when there are 5 or 6 of them in a group. My cats love watching them march around but know better than approaching them. We get the little white birds too. Ibis I think they are.

Dolphins in the gulf too. check out my movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omtTgRPDbJo

We do have a gopher tortise living under the concrete slab of our patio. Its got one heck of a hole going there. I'd get it removed but the slab is reinforced concrete so I am not worried about the lack of support due to the void under it. I wonder what else is living in the tortise den. Nature is a beautiful thing.
We all must respect it and it will respect us. The only wildlife I saw in NYC were rats the size of housecats and pigeons. :-)))

Quote:

Originally Posted by housingcrashsurvivor

I've lived in the Caribbean and on the water and on boats and in south Florida and now Tampa so I've had a life of enjoying nature. We've had manatee in our canal. I've seen sea horses and played with a baby octopus, so cute, been just a few feet away from a whale. I've swam with sea turtles and dolphin and where we used to hang quite a bit was a resident 6 plus-foot barracuda. He would just come over and spend some time with ya. Never bothered anyone.

In south Florida I once saw an otter and tons of gators as I often biked the everglades trails. Canoeing on the Loxahatchee and exploring a tributary through some low hanging greenery, I once paddled us alongside a gator the size of the canoe. Super cool. He was like 3 ft away up on the bank. We woke him up. Ooops. He looked really well fed so I wasn't worried. I was just in aw of this thing. But then I looked back and my friend was white as a ghost so I slowly back paddled us out of there. When we returned the boat we were told it was a known 16 footer in the area. Gorgeous.

I love the birds here. I once had a rare sighting of a snowy owl flying right alongside my car for like a long time. They don't usually visit Florida. Just last week I had a wild turkey in the garden. They're beautiful birds. The first time I saw one, a group of them, was while biking through Flatwoods up by Temple Terrace/New Tampa. I'd never seen one before but knew what it was as soon as I saw them. Also I've seen wild boar. One of whom I've noticed posting here every so often. I've a visiting indigo snake who's been coming by since he was a baby. I don't harass him but I've let him crawl over my arm. He's beautiful. They have a huge range. I noticed another poster mentioned one on their car. Very odd. But please be sure to be gentle with them, even if you encounter a large one. They won't hurt you and they eat poisonous snakes. So they're the good guys.

Also here I've a family of hawks and a super big owl. I don't know what the owl is. I've only seen him at night flying right overhead, huge wingspan, but I don't even know what color it is. The hawks are amazing, red shouldered. Beautiful. Once one was in the garden on the ground who hadn't noticed me nor I him. So while walking in his direction suddenly he took off so close that I actually felt the wind from his wings brush me. I love nature. It's one of the wonderful things about Tampa, there's so much of it here.

valicky · 04-25-2014, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spring Hillian

valicky - I uploaded 3 pics to a public photo album called "cayman". Check it out.

Beautiful pictures!!! Caribbean water is just so gorgeous.

I've been to Cayman but didn't go see the rays. I did see one of those fish that looks like a rock though. Yikes. The ray I saw in Biscayne Bay was dark black with white spots. He wasn't so flat like most rays are . He had a meaty body and head. I think it's a spotted eagle ray, not sure.

I also remembered that one time our boat got a little stuck in a shallow area so dh told me and the kids to go up front so he could get us off the sand. We saw a little baby hammerhead swimming around. The water was crystal clear that day so it was like watching him in a fish tank. I love snorkeling!

housingcrashsurvivor · 04-25-2014, 05:11 PM

Ya Spring, I've seen lots of stingray and even swam once with a manta right off Lauderdale beach. Great big wingspan on him. But he was taking me into deeper water and I didn't have any gear on so I said my goodbyes and turned back. The only time I was ever nervous a little around cudas was at the inlet to Port Everglades when I was a kid. I knew they were there, I saw some here and there and I was okay with that but then I found myself inside the school--just little guys, maybe 3 footers max, but a lot of them--so I just swam backwards keeping my eye on them until I felt my butt hit sand.

The whale made me a little nervous as I was pretty far from the boat and everyone else, visibility wasn't great right then so he came out of nowhere and at first I wasn't sure who it was. But he was just swimming past. Didn't stop to say hi or nothin'. Dolphin encounters I love. We were just out at New Pass in Sarasota and had an entire show during lunch. Perfect timing. A big pod of more than six of them including two babies and they were teaching the babies to tail slap. I'd never seen a baby do a tail slap before. It was really cute. We had a bunch of old friends in town from grade school so nature gave us an excellent day to show off Florida.

I also love the sandhill cranes and was just enjoying hearing them while working in the garden. They only come over here every so often but I hear them most nights about this time at this time of year. They can be loud. And they're pretty fearless. I've biked by a few of them, and they don't even move out of the way. They're like "we were here first" so I just excuse myself "pardon me" & go around them. Also this year I had a teenage blue heron hanging out for a few days. You could tell that he was gonna grow into those feet. But I haven't seen him in about a week.

For anyone who hasn't enjoyed underwater world because it made you nervous, but if you like aquariums, I'd suggest Discovery Cove in Orlando. I thought it was going to be real hoaky but I actually enjoyed it very much. It's a little pricey but they do a good job and you can enjoy the experience without worry.

Spring Hillian · 04-25-2014, 06:01 PM

Great experiences. Those Sandhil Cranes are something else. If they are crossing the street you wait for them to finish walking by. They can fly, but if they want to cross the street, they are going to do so. That "we were here first" attitude. These experiences we get to have are one of the many reasons that I love living here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by housingcrashsurvivor

Ya Spring, I've seen lots of stingray and even swam once with a manta right off Lauderdale beach. Great big wingspan on him. But he was taking me into deeper water and I didn't have any gear on so I said my goodbyes and turned back. The only time I was ever nervous a little around cudas was at the inlet to Port Everglades when I was a kid. I knew they were there, I saw some here and there and I was okay with that but then I found myself inside the school--just little guys, maybe 3 footers max, but a lot of them--so I just swam backwards keeping my eye on them until I felt my butt hit sand.

The whale made me a little nervous as I was pretty far from the boat and everyone else, visibility wasn't great right then so he came out of nowhere and at first I wasn't sure who it was. But he was just swimming past. Didn't stop to say hi or nothin'. Dolphin encounters I love. We were just out at New Pass in Sarasota and had an entire show during lunch. Perfect timing. A big pod of more than six of them including two babies and they were teaching the babies to tail slap. I'd never seen a baby do a tail slap before. It was really cute. We had a bunch of old friends in town from grade school so nature gave us an excellent day to show off Florida.

I also love the sandhill cranes and was just enjoying hearing them while working in the garden. They only come over here every so often but I hear them most nights about this time at this time of year. They can be loud. And they're pretty fearless. I've biked by a few of them, and they don't even move out of the way. They're like "we were here first" so I just excuse myself "pardon me" & go around them. Also this year I had a teenage blue heron hanging out for a few days. You could tell that he was gonna grow into those feet. But I haven't seen him in about a week.

For anyone who hasn't enjoyed underwater world because it made you nervous, but if you like aquariums, I'd suggest Discovery Cove in Orlando. I thought it was going to be real hoaky but I actually enjoyed it very much. It's a little pricey but they do a good job and you can enjoy the experience without worry.

BucFan · 04-28-2014, 04:32 AM

I come across armadillos and raccoons occasionally. I walked out of Raymond James Stadium last season and saw a pack of raccoons going to town on a dumpster in the RayJay parking lot. I see raccoons on my golf course all the time, and the last time, one was laying (dead) in the middle of a sandtrap (I had to tell the maintenance people about him).

Sand cranes everywhere where I live. Large turtles as well. Also have a gator occasionally in our big lake nearby. Most of the golf courses seem to have medium sized gators -

My community had to deal with wild hogs - they tear up the lawns with their snouts. They can be a real nuisance. I've seen packs of them on the roadsides and once or twice seen big ones laying on the side of the roads after being hit. They can get to be huge.

overit2 · 04-28-2014, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valicky

Beautiful pictures!!! Caribbean water is just so gorgeous.

I've been to Cayman but didn't go see the rays. I did see one of those fish that looks like a rock though. Yikes. The ray I saw in Biscayne Bay was dark black with white spots. He wasn't so flat like most rays are . He had a meaty body and head. I think it's a spotted eagle ray, not sure.

I also remembered that one time our boat got a little stuck in a shallow area so dh told me and the kids to go up front so he could get us off the sand. We saw a little baby hammerhead swimming around. The water was crystal clear that day so it was like watching him in a fish tank. I love snorkeling!

This exact same thing happened to us when vacationing in the bay area ..we were trying to leave Caladesi in the late afternoon-tide was changing....we saw we were WAY to close to bottom..hammer head just swam by and SO had to jump down to pull us away from the shallow lol TOO FUNNY!

BucFan · 05-10-2014, 08:33 AM

Damn these lovebugs......

BucFan · 05-19-2014, 03:18 PM

Elephant on Pinellas beach part of birthday party

Oh yeah, ran into a small fox the other day while running. Worried that he'd come bite me ------

jsun556 · 05-20-2014, 06:53 AM

I was walking out on the pier at Ft. Desoto and at the very end, a small pod of dolphins was circling one of the posts at the end of the pier surrounding a school of fish, each one would take a turn going into the school to feed while the rest would continue circling to keep the school in place. It was really amazing to see. Dolphins are so smart.