Saturday, February 21, 2009

Saturday Burrowing Owl Festival

The Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife 7th Annual Burrowing Owl Festival was held today at Rotary Park in Cape Coral, Florida. This is to celebrate the Burrowing Owl, that is the official city bird and Cape Coral’s natural resource treasure. This festival is designed to educate people about the owl and to involve them in its preservation. Events included a children’s corner, native plants sales, live animals, educational speakers, nature walks, burrowing owl tours and exhibitors’ displays. Demonstrations on installing starter burrows, perch making and burrow maintenance, a butterfly tent with live butterflies.

It took about an hour and a half for us to see everything and we then went on a walking tour on one of the trails. There was an observation tower on the trail that we chose. My favorite things included, a beautiful cactus bed, just inside the park, the live owl display, the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary display, our very own C.R.O.W. display and the Butterfly House. The entire festival was very interesting. It was a perfect day for it with warm sunshine and a cool breeze.

I took pictures of a few displays etc. but there were so many people around that I couldn't get close enough to do a very good job of it. There were many very interesting displays to enjoy.







The flower stalk on this plant was almost 15 feet tall.




Native plants for sale and a display of native Florida plants.









Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary Display



I can't remember what the name of this lizard is, but seems to me that it might be invasive to Florida because it was next to a Boa. I've searched for it but have had no luck so far. If you know what it is, please comment. :-)


Great Horned Owl; looked like an animated bird when it turned it's head. I didn't get to see a Burrowing Owl.


Bat Display





Manatee skeleton

A gentleman explained to us about the Manatee's Marching Molars and their lifetime supply of teeth.

Views from lookout tower.



One of the nature trails.





One of these was a Barn Owl, the other a Barred Owl. My favorite was a tiny Eastern Screech Owl.




2 comments:

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Hi Tootie, Looks like you all had a wonderful day...Sorry you didn't get to see a burrowing owl though.

They go all out for that festival, don't they???? When I lived in Venice, we'd go to Sarasota to the beach there at Siesta Key--and we found TONS of sharks teeth. Wish I still have them..

Thanks for sharing the festival with us.
Hugs,
Betsy

Unknown said...

Did you buy any of those native plants?