Sunburst Cafe

Sunburst Cafe is a coffee shop in a shopping center at Airport-Pulling and Pine Ridge Road.

A mural extends along the wall.  It is colorfully Floridian.

Visit Monday Mural for more photos of murals.

Dave

Dave is a Viet Nam vet.  He went to college on the G.I. bill and graduated with a degree in geography.  Dave has lived in southwest Florida for more than fifty years.  He has seen a lot of changes, but, with his geography background, he says he anticipated most of the changes.

Dave is conservative.  He thinks Donald Trump has done a great job.  Our conversation was brief.

Concentration

Great blue herons stand motionlessly for quite a while, just studying the water before pouncing.

Sunset on Rookery Bay

Sunset brings the birds back to a rookery island, where the concentration of birds

affords protection from predators like raccoons and Burmese pythons.
Pelicans tend to stay with pelicans, egrets with egrets, etc.

Here is a great white egret zooming back to the rookery.  The sunset turns him gold.

The falling sun gave our wake golden highlights as we returned to the dock.

A Cruise in Rookery Bay

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida sponsors cruises in Rookery Bay.

Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve stretches across 110,000 acres of pristine mangrove forest, uplands and protected waters, encompassing 40% of Collier County coastline.



The cruise begins in the afternoon and finishes at sunset.

There are lots of pelicans, some on the water, some in trees, some in the air.

And a few great blue herons.





And osprey.

And double-crested cormorants.

Tomorrow:  sunset on Rookery Bay.

Naples Botanical Gardens

Yesterday's post was from a nighttime light show at Naples Botanical Gardens.  This is from a recent daytime visit.  Founded in 1993, the 170-acre world class gardens opened to the public
in 2009, just ten years ago.  They showcase plants from all over the world.

A new feature this season is a pair of trees at the entrance, planted with a colorful variety of orchids.

There is a big pond filled with water lilies.

A bee doing its thing.

A local photogher's images from the garden are on display through April.

Night Lights at the Naples Botanical Gardens

Starting around Thanksgiving and running a few days into a new year, the Naples Botanical Gardens present a wonderful show of lighting after dark.  I went on Friday evening.



Many areas had ever-changing colors.  This arbor was green when I took the photo and red when I left.



Night Lights is a hugely popular event, sold out most nights.  These lights reflected on a
glassy water surface.  They looked like what I imagine an LSD trip would be like.





A big tile mural by the late Brazilian artist Roberto Burle Marx is one of the gardens' features.
From any perspective it was awesome in the colorful lighting.

Some areas have lights with just one color.  Others use the full range of colors.



Musicians were stationed around the gardens.