2010 March 5 Friday
After lunch here, we went to Celebration to walk, bird watch, and people watch. When we went out to our car, a little-blue heron was walking along the edge of the parking lot, I suppose from the pond on the other side of our building. It was sunny, warm, and only a slight breeze, so lots of people were out. I wore a sweatshirt, but some people were in t-shirts. It finally seems like the warmth is getting here. We made our usual Starbucks stop and walked along two of the lakes. We saw the same water-birds and lots of warblers. I forgot my binoculars, and my naked eyes don’t work well for the small quick-moving birds. So we only identified a few of them. We also saw a cardinal, a phoebe, a catbird, and an osprey. We saw a small alligator on a different lake from where the girls saw one on Monday. It was a very enjoyable walk. Then we sat along the lake and watched people and the very friendly rusty blackbirds. People feed them, so they come right up to you. Linda had one eat out of her hand. Only one guy was fishing, and he was after bass, using a soft-plastic crayfish lure. He didn’t catch anything while we were watching, but he said someone had recently caught a 6.5 pound largemouth there. Home for supper.

WEATHER: High 65, low 40. The forecast shows 67 Sat., then into the 70’s after that, with near 80 on Thurs. with rain. Now the normal high is 77, low 54. Let’s just be normal for a change!

FL NEWS: (1) [Yesterday, there was a wildfire that threatened some homes, even though there has been plenty of rain this winter - over 3 inches above average so far. But there also is lots of dead grass and brush from the severe cold earlier. So I’m not surprised of the following warning.]
Issued by the National Weather Service at 6:55 am EST on March 6, 2010.
A red flag warning remains in effect from 11 am this morning to 6 PM EST this evening.
A Fire Weather Watch remains in effect Sunday afternoon.
A red flag warning is issued when very favorable conditions for the spread of wildfire are occurring now... or will likely occur within the next 24 hours.
A Fire Weather Watch is issued when very favorable conditions for the spread of wildfire are forecast to occur in the next 24 to 96 hours.

(2) [The death of the trainer at Sea World continues to be big in the news here. There are several articles in today’s paper about it.]
“HOW CLOSE IS TOO CLOSE FOR A KILLER-WHALE TRAINER”
As SeaWorld and the team of outside experts it has assembled comb through the company's safety policies following last week's fatal killer-whale accident, they face an important question: How close is too close for the trainers who work with the company's biggest orca?
SeaWorld has long restricted its trainers from swimming with Tilikum, the 6-ton killer whale that pulled trainer Dawn Brancheau to her death last week. But it does allow them to work with the animal from shallow ledges built into the sides of its tanks. What's more, SeaWorld also permits trainers to lie down in that shallow water with Tilikum and other orcas — provided, officials say, the trainers maintain adequate distance from the animals. Brancheau, 40, was lying on one of those ledges last Wednesday afternoon when Tilikum suddenly took her long ponytail in his jaws, pulled her into his tank and drowned her. Video taken by tourists moments before the tragedy show the veteran trainer lying on her stomach, partially submerged, while Tilikum's head bobs just beyond the ledge in deeper water. The two appear nearly face to face. The underwater ledges built into the tanks range from as little as 2 inches deep to as much as 4 feet deep. The ledge that Brancheau was on at the time of the accident was between 3 and 5 inches deep. SeaWorld's policy of allowing trainers to work with Tilikum from tank ledges is among the items under examination.