It is Friday, and we face a day of steady rain in Maine, slowly reducing our 3 feet of snow on the ground to slush. Depressing. So I declare it Florida Friday, and will take you back a month to my last trip to Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera for this Florida Sandhill Crane. As I have mentioned before, Florida Sandhills are far different than the wild, almost prehistoric creatures of the Southwest of the same name. In Florida if you stop your car on the side of the road to look at Sandhills, they will cross the road to see what you are doing. No really! One floridian told me, when we were talking about it, that there is nothing like walking into the kitchen and opening the drapes over the back deck sliding doors to find a Sandhill Crane inches from the glass looking in at you. So, getting shots like this of Sandhills in Florida is not as tricky as it might seem to anyone familiar with, say, New Mexico Sandhills.

Canon SX50HS. Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. 1200mm equivalent field of view. ISO 800 @1/1000th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.