Fire !!

Don't worry.
The blogs aren't on fire.
But, earlier my legs were !
At least it seemed that way.

Today was mostly overcast,
but I got some great pictures anyway.

An osprey flew straight over my head.

A Moscovi duck couple were bathing.

I saw a geat blue heron having trouble
swallowing a catfish he caught.

Two sandhill cranes visited a pond.

A mottled duck couple had a duckling recently.

Also, a great egret was picking off lizards
from the trees and tall grasses as he walked th edge.

When I got home I discovered I had taken a total of 501 photos.
Not bad for 3 hours.

As I was following the great egret picking off the little lizards,
I guess I was too focused (literally) on the bird's activities.
I'm usually pretty good at watching where I step,
especially while in Florida.
For example, there's a variety of snakes and lots of alligators too.
You really don't want to step on or near the wrong animal.

So, I'm following this egret, taking lots of pictures
and I did sort of half notice that my feet walked
into an area that was especially soft ground.

It was about 15 seconds later however,
when I got my wake-up call as to what I had stepped upon.
I quickly looked down because I felt pain.
Pain in both of my legs.
When I looked down, there were approximately
400 (no exaggeration) small red ants crawling
and biting my calves and feet.

I was standing on a fire ant nest.
So, I immediately brushed off as many
of the little bastards that I could
and quickly took 4 steps to my left.

It's weird, because I did not notice
399 ants crawling onto my ankles & legs.
It's sort of like they tiptoed and waited
for the command from their general,
"OK, everyone start biting !"
Because, there were like 350 bites at once
and more kept coming.

It took about 60 seconds to get every last one of those
bastads off of my legs.
My shoes were still covered with them.
I THOUGHT if I banged them against a large rock,
I could quickly shake them off my shoes.
Yeah, that worked ....somewhat.
But a lot of them, were biting my shoes and held on.

Increadibly, not only did I have to wipe the ants off,
but I literally had to take the shoes apart, as the ants
burrowed into the crevices of the shoes.
What a figgin' nightmare !
It took me a good 10-15 minutes to get them all out.
....Or so I thought.
Back in the car 1/2 hour later, a few of them still bit me
while driving.
I think a few are now hiding in the car for tomorrow.

"Hehehe, step on our nest, will ya ! You will rue the day bucko !"

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For more info on fire ants, here's a link;