Red hot sun

Boy oh boy is it hot out there. Here in central Florida we’ve been running just a degree or two above normal temperatures, into the mid-90s, but the “feels like” temperature has climbed over 100 for the past few days. And even though its the rainy season, until late this afternoon we hadn’t had any rain for several days.

I went out early this afternoon to look for birds at Gemini Springs and was not surprised to find little action. I did see my first of fall American Redstart, and a couple of lingering Swallow-tailed Kites, but for the most part it seemed to be too hot even for butterflies to be on the wing. It was certainly too hot for reasonably intelligent humans to be out. 😉

As I was walking along the bike path on my way back to the park proper, I saw a small red mass at the forest edge. When I made out the red blob to be a Northern Cardinal, my first thought was that I had found a dead bird. But I quickly realized that the little dude was just sunning himself, positioning his feathers to expose just the right ones to the hot sun. Unfortunately my appearance startled the red hot fellow so he flew off with a surprised chirp.

Sunning Northern Cardinal

I took the photos in this post back in May. He’s just standing at an odd angle, no weird wing contortions here. I wonder if its the same sun-worshipping cardinal I came upon this afternoon?

Sunning Northern Cardinal

Sunning Northern Cardinal

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