My phone rang early in the morning - and Tim called me up to join him at the Lake Louisa State Park. It being the first beautiful days in weeks, and me not having gotten out for way too long - I pondered this difficult decision for about 1/100,000 sec before I packed my gear. It was gorgeous, though still a bit windy from the Noel, the tropical storm passing by Florida, after having killed over 100 people in the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Bahamas. Fresh air and temps in the low 70’s when we met up. We went to the Lake first, and man it almost got chilly due to the wind (at least chilly for a Floridian ). Not much happening there - maybe too cold for Dragonflies and Butterflies - we encountered some Damselflies, though - three striped Bluets mostly. We walked back through the woods to some of my favorite spots. Zebra Heliconians had significantly increased their presence - and of course lots of Gulf Fritillaries. Many Spiders and nets to the left and the right and then we ran into a small group of Turkey hens. Big one’s at that, too! We came quite close, and when we were standing and watching - a Viceroy decided for a moment to perch on Tim’s hand. Cool! Venturing further we decided to cross the heath off the beaten path, ran into a lot of Gopher holes and eventually ran into white tail deer. No chance for really good shots but fun nevertheless. At the border from heath to Pinewoods we then found two empty Gopher tortoise shells. According to Tim they sustained injuries, while fighting each other - and didn’t make it. I found them to be quite solid and heavy - more so than I anticipated. On our way back we then again met up with Gulf Fritillary and friends (Viceroy), many caterpillars and some lone Palamedes Swallowtails. All in all a fun walk and incredibly relaxing on top of it. Here are some pics of our walk.

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