"Wild" life in Florida

Throughout my 15 years of living in Florida, I have seen many strange creatures that I hardly knew existed, growing up in Idaho. One of the worst annoyances are the cockroaches--I will not post a picture of them because they are just outright ugly! But with proper pest control, you don't have to see many of them, thank goodness. However, I thought I would share a few that have become pretty commonplace that I never dreamed I might encounter.

First, we have the buzzards--when you see a group of them, you know they are feasting on something. Here, it was a fallen deer at the side of the road.

How do they all know exactly where to meet up for their dinner?

Next is the snake problem. You always have to beware of that--even on your yard. However, you don't often think about them coming into your garage.

A little startling to find this when you go out to get in your car!

Now, the wild turkeys are just plain fun to watch. They feed here and there and are definately afraid of you as you try to walk up closer to get a good picture. I think there were 20 or 30 when I took this picture. As people build more and more houses, they move further and further away. So sad!

George loves to walk around the golf course--not to play, but to find golf balls. He takes me along with his 15-foot ball snatcher, and believe me, he is eagle-eye Copeland! We have supplied all the sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons with all the golf balls they'll need in a lifetime! He stacks them in egg cartons in the spare bedroom. Well, we always walked around a little lake which George mentioned he'd heard there was a gator in it. We kept looking and finally saw its little beady eyes one day. After that, we saw him a couple more times. I asked George how big he thought he was--"Oh, about 4 or 5 feet," he said. I told him I thought he was bigger. Well, guess what! They finally took him out--7 feet 9 inches! Wow! I feel safer going walking now that he is gone!