Millicent's cheerleading tryout...

You saw it here first, people - Millicent the Nanday Parakeet finally overcame her natural shyness and decided to try out for the cheerleading squad.  Mean-girl-parakeets, Nanny and Maude, looked on and tittered, but that didn't deter our Millicent from putting on a brilliant performance.  
The end.

I decided to brave the frigid chilly temps and head to Fort DeSoto this morning. Today is the first day of the 4-day  Great Backyard Bird Count, a worldwide citizen-science project.  This morning, I saw 497 birds, 33 different species - a good morning!  Lots of snowy and great egrets, shore birds, osprey, pelicans, gulls and even some warblers.  Yep, a good day.  

If you'd like to see a few others from today's count, I've posted 8 starting HERE on Flickr - several might have been better picks for today, but I had to go with the Nanday Parakeets (even though they are an introduced species here in FL, not native).

Happy day-before-Valentine's day, people...

Debbi