Parrots, Up Close & Personal

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One parrot or two? CLICK on the photo to find out.

Parrots are most striking for their range of brilliant colors, which includes shades of green, red, pink, yellow, blue, purple, black and white. In some parrot species, male and female birds have the same coloring. In others, the female is the plainest of the pair. This has two advantages:· it is the male who attracts the female to mate · if the female is less obvious to predators, she has a better chance of surviving to breed and rear her young successfully

It is estimated in the year 2000 there were 60 million birds in 6.13 million homes

Parrots are hole nesters, they build their nest in holes in trees and rock cavities and ground tunnels and even in termite mounds

Some of the macaw species are popularly known for their impressive size. The largest parrot in length and wingspan is the above Hyacinth Macaw

this African Gray is popular as a pet or companion parrot, because of its ability to imitate speech. This parrot is the most talkative one at Jungle Gardens. He sounds just like a person and talks non-stop most of the time.

CUTE PARROTS ON SITE TOMORROW........................

Sunday Bloggin

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set your Glory above the heavens. Psalm 8:1

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? Psalm 8:3-4

Parrot Palaver

I almost skipped the post today, but I checked out Paddle Tales and found a saying on there that I am going to memorize. It inspired me to keep trying with my photography.

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
~Henry Van Dyke
Thanks Peggy for the inspiration!


I Love Parrots! I purchase a season pass each year to Jungle Gardens, solely for the purpose of photographing parrots. to see my Happy Face, click on picture to enlarge details

Fact 1: There are 328 species of Parrots







Amazon Parrot, he is very small, about 8 inches.

Fact 2: Parrots can fly up to 400 miles a day in the Jungle and there loud noise can be heard up to a mile away.

This is a Hyacinth Macaw






Fact 3: Large Parrots such as these Macaws live more than 75 years. small ones live 10 to 15 years

Military Macaws are the best known.

Fact 4: Most parrots have a keen sense of smell. It's believed that they exude an aroma to attract a mate.

On the Light Side of parrots!

A postal carrier is working on a new beat. He comes to a garden gate marked BEWARE OF THE PARROT! He looks down the garden and, sure enough, there's a parrot sitting on its perch. He has a little chuckle to himself at the sign and the parrot there on its perch. The mailman opens the gate and walks into the garden. He gets as far as the parrot's perch, when suddenly, it calls out: "REX, ATTACK!"

Rad Red!

OK! most of you know I got the idea to post my veggie prints from my friend, Snapper II. I OF COURSE am Snapper I and he says I am his hero. I think that makes it OK to use his idea. I mean I AM number ONE! or so he says. If you want to see what inspired me, click on the purple Snapper II link above.
Click on this tomato to see all the tiny little details...................

I thought about just posting the pictures, but then my Blah, Blah kicked in and I just HAD to GOOGLE The Color Red.........

Per Wikpedia:

The color red is associated with the color of blood, certain flowers, like roses, and ripe fruits and veggies. Now we have that settled.

What do you think when I say RED?

Valentine? Christmas? Fire? Love? Passion? Devils? Communism? Embarrassed? STOP! on that one I will do just that Stop talking about RED.

I can do a post on nothing!

P.S. I forgot the saying, "She is one hot tomato!" I say WHAT?

How old is OLD?

Sandra, age 2 above, age 3 months below. These pictures are OLD! who knew they made photographs way back then?

Age has been on my mind for weeks now as I anxiously await the activation of my Medicare Card on Sept 1. At last a birthday I am happy to see. PLUS, my Baby Brother turned 61, this past Friday.

My email this morning was full of age related messages. I had a card from friend Carole, that was a preview of her 25th Anniversary Card that was created for? her daughter! We know when our children have been married 25 years, age comes in to play somewhere in there. NOT that I am saying Carole is OLD.

The next email was from my friend Shirley, telling me her husband is 77 today. My first thought was, I have friends THAT old? Sorry Shirley and Jimmy, but if the comment fits?

My third email, was from this blog, a comment made by Sunny on my Purple Post. I laughed out loud and clicked on her site, Not Ready For the Pasture. You can guess what that is about. AGE!

You Must read her last few post, click on the link above and read and laugh.

I know I am old because my children are getting Old, for that matter my Grand children are all in their 20's and I have 2 great grand children.

My question is how did this happen in such a short time.

I must have BLINKED.

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

SPECIAL LINK FOR MY DEAF FRIEND, LYRICS ON SCREEN

HERE YOU GO!

PLEASING, PRETTY, PURPLE PHOTO'S

CLICK FOR PURPLE DETAILS

In color theory, a "purple" is defined as any non spectral color between violet and red, excluding violet and red.

In art, purple is the color on the color wheel between magenta and violet and its tints and shades.
In human color psychology, purple is also associated with royalty and nobility

NO REASON AT ALL FOR THIS POST TODAY, I JUST WANTED TO

POST PURPLE PHOTOSHOPPED PICTURES!

Itty Bitty Beauty

Be sure you click on the photo to see the details

Last week while reading through the post on a blog called Paddle Tales, I found myself feeling a little jealous. I thought, I wish I could paddle down the river and find all this wonderful beauty to take photo's of. I also thought it will never happen. I am afraid of water and have been since I was two years old.
My feeble senior brain kicked in when I found my pods and berries folder. I don't NEED to go on the river, I can WALK and find beauty. Most of the pictures were taken on walks with Diane through the woods on cool, crisp mornings. We met at dawn and waited for daylight. As we walked, we discovered tiny small things on every side of us. the berries in the above pictures are no bigger than a BB, but look what the camera shows us. Itty Bitty beauty and marvelous colors.

Beauty, small and perfect, found sprouting out of a tree trunk.

Seed pods at Emerson Point park, ugly and beautiful.

I took my camera to work the next morning after I saw wonderful Magnolia blossoms on the trees in the median. At lunch time I ignored the stares as i walked in the median with my camera. Disapointed, I found the flowers were wilted and turning brown, not what they were they day before. Then I realized I was looking at perfect little seeds.

The earth if full of your possessions, this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both SMALL and GREAT.

Psalm 104:34-25

From Small things, come great things, from small blessings come great blessings. The tongue is a small thing and from it comes evil and good.

Every time you speak, your mind is on parade.

author Ane Cetas

Accidental Jungle Again!

The big tree in right hand corner, is a Ruby Red Grapefruit tree. This is the story
1987, hubby comes home with seed that has a small green shoot. Seems he was eating a Ruby Red that a friend brought to work, and there was the seed, he wraps it in a wet towel and brings it home, plants in a cup. As a 3 inch seedling, he transplants into 5 gallon bucket. Tree grows for 2 years in bucket, we have no where to plant it in our St Petersburg yard. 1989 we move to Bradenton, he plants 4 ft. tree in new front yard. The yard was bare at the time, no jungle growth. My uncle, a farmer and many others said it will never bear fruit and if it does, it will be to sour to eat. I read somewhere trees bear fruit in 7th year. Sure enough, 1995 we had about 20 delicious grapefruit. the tree exploded in growth and now we beg people to take the fruit. FROM a SEED no less.

NO, this is not a grapefruit. this is last years Avocado. You guessed it!

Grown from a seed.

In Sept of 2001, 4 days after 9/11 and its horror, Gabriella, a Tropical Storm, came through our back yard and took down a tree that shaded most of our back yard. The root when it turned over was higher than my head.

I stood in the back yard and cried, several trees down, every bush minus its leaves. our beautiful jungle laid flat.

The year before, Bob had stuck a seed from an avocado into the damp ground by the AC drip and had a 4 foot tree in a bucket. He said I am going to plant this in the place where the big tree was. My reply was, we will be dead and gone before it will be big enough to make a difference.

WRONG! The above picture is the trunk, the one above that is the tree. It has spread it's limbs and is a wonderful shade tree.

the Good news is: we have the shade back in our skyline.

The Bad news is: it drops little avocado's on the ground when the squirrels gnaw on them, the dogs eat them and get upset tummies. This means, we have to pick them up in a timely manner.

These are the two pineapple tops we planted. My husband eats one pineapple a day for gout. It works. I said why don't you plant a top and see what happens. our neighbor is growing pineapples. And here we are, we should have pineapple this summer. We have no place to put them in the ground and are hoping they will have fruit in the buckets.

Words from The Word

2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

1 Corinthians:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Palm Trees

No, I was not standing on my head when I took this shot. These are palms reflecting in the lake at Jungle Gardens, Sarasota FL. click to enlarge to see the ripple effect.

These palms are in the yard of a church near our house. They are so tall and big, I needed to take pieces of them to get all of the beauty.

I am now done with the subject of Palm trees. For now anyway. An email pal said to me yesterday, don't they have roaches? yes they do was the answer and also rats love them. Only in Florida! I still love palm trees.

Accidental Jungle Part 4

I have loved palm trees since I was a very small child. It does not matter, tall, short, bush, tree, I love all things palms. The flowing limbs when the wind blows and the clacking noise the fronds make in the wind.

The tree this pod is on right now, is not our tree. Our neighbor behind us had 5 of them flush against our privacy fence. We were thrilled when we saw the trees, and as our jungle grew in front of the fence, the trees look like they are in our jungle. I love the trees, my husband hates them.

Click on this to see the beauty of the pod, itty bitty flowers and so lacy looking. Lovely to look at isn't it?

The above picture is the pod 3 days after I took the first 2 pictures. It changes daily.

The beauty starts to rain in the pool, all those pretty lacy little flowers fall off. Each day it gets prettier and lacier. as they drop to the ground and blow in the breeze ALL over our pool.

After all the flowers blow away, what is left is little seed pods, they turn brown, and then drop like marbles all over the ground. At last it will fall off the tree and we can pick it up. I say it is worth the trouble, but then I am NOT the one who cleans the pool.