Thanks to the warm water coming out of the Tampa electric plant's cooling system, we are able to view the manatees when temperatures elsewhere drop below 68 degree Fahrenheit. This amazing symbiotic relationship between the Tampa area electric power and this amazing mammal species has been going on for about 20 years. Some interesting facts about manatees:

• The Florida manatee is a sub-species of the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus) that has quickly adapted to live close to humans.
• The manatee was confused with the Greek mythical sirens who were not as gentle as these lovely creatures. Manatees are in fact so gentle that you can swim around them here in Florida.
• Christopher Columbus wrote about the American manatee back in 1493 for the first time.
• These mammals are entirely vegetarian or "vegan" and consume great amounts of seaweed.
• Manatees are also called Sea Cows
• An adult can weight 1,200 pounds (about 470 Kilograms) and measure 10 feet (about 3.3 meters), but they are known to grow to 14 feet (4.2 meters) and weight 3,000 pounds (1120 kg).
• Manatees sleep lots, about 12 hours a day; and when they are sleeping they surface every 20 min. to breath, when awake is about every 5 min.
• The manatees' biggest enemy is the recreation boat and its human counterpart, killing them in the hundreds every year.

More interesting information and directions to the "Manatee Viewing Center" can be found here at the Tampa Electric website.

This beautiful bird was just there standing watching the traffic of cars coming in and out of the parking lot. It didn't really care much for people watching it.

This is a tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor) also known as the Louisiana Heron in the USA. As this bird was stalking its pray I was stalking it with my camera. Obviously I am not as good of a stalker as this bird, since it noticed me and elongated its neck and moved its head from side to side as if it was giving each of its eyes a chance to look at me. The fact that this is one of most colorful of the large birds here in Florida might actually help it hide from its predators; as you can see in the picture, its color lets it blend very well with the swampy/water background. The colors that make this bird unique are blue, yellow, brown, black, and white; more than three if you ask this obviously non photonics / optics / lights expert.

This is the largest Grasshopper I've ever seen. Of course, I've only lived in Phoenix for about a year, there might be larger ones to come yet. This little bugger was just resting there, on the side of my house. There is a cabbage farm close to where I live, so it probably came to rest after a big feast, or maybe the cabbage farmer ran it out with insecticides.

The White Ibis (Eudocimus albus) is a very funny looking bird that you might find in many places here in Tampa. The bird in the picture was among ducks that were being fed by a student in a pond at USF. When the bird grabbed whatever the fellow student gave it, it (the Ibis) ran quickly to the edge of the water and soaked his/her grab in water before degluting it. This operation gave no chance to the ducks around to snatch the precious meal from the Ibis. You can find more information about this bird from "The Wild Ones" which is a trust for wild life conservation.

I am new to this site, and find it to be wonderful! I love nature and animals and get tired of trying to take pro photographic shots when I just want the animal or plant to tell it's own tale.

We were on our way to Pringle Bay where we have our weekend house and we spotted this snake on the road at the little seaside village just before Pringle Bay. There are many sitings of these snakes in the area and it is my second one in five years. We obviously do not want to get too close to it as their bites can be fatal.

I look forward to sharing my pics with you and telling my stories. Living in a very interesting area, I have lots to show and tell.

Aphids would normally be a reason not to buy a plant... but, in my case, I have to confess that they were one of the selling points for I was going to have a few hours of fun photographing this little bugs. I put the plant in the Walmart cart and paid for my infested dwarf pomegranate tree. Aphids are interesting little creatures who's excrement is called Honeydew; a precious elixir that incentives a collaborative effort without parallels by ants who care for and defend aphids close to their colony; and yes, in fact my tree came with ants as well. You can read a little more about aphid and ant collaboration from the Japanese Ant Database Group.

Here in Whitecourt, Alberta deer are everywhere. My wife took this picture last week close to highway 43 in our Town. This deer is a Mule Deer which is one of two predominant species in Alberta; the other common species is the white tailed deer. The black tip on the tail (see picture) gave the species of deer.

These birds are seen here in Tampa everywhere; they seem to be very good at fishing. While resting in between sessions of a conference held at the Tampa Conference Center I couldn't resist the temptation to get close and photograph this Cormorant just facing the wind in the company of some seagulls. The name Cormorant comes from the Latin contraction corvus marinus which means "sea raven"; the raven is a similar bird which this species was confused with. These birds are interesting regarding their nesting behavior; they gather just about anything for making nests including plastic debris, and even parts of dead birds. It seems they sometimes confuse pebbles that they bring into their nests and just proceed to treat them as eggs. More interesting facts about Cormorants can be read from the Cornell University Bird Guide.

Every summer my wife and I are on constant alert in the evenings to save young oppossum from our three Jack Russell Terriers while they are outside. I'm afraid we are not always successfull!

In this instance we managed to save this cute little guy. The dogs had chased him up into one of my bonsai (a Dwarf Hinoki Cypress) which was safely sitting on a bench. When we heard them howling we scrambled out and it took a few minutes before we saw his face up in the tree. We picked him out of the tree and carried him over to the nearby woods.

Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio