Birdwatching...it's not for everyone.

So, I needed a super easy credit class for this semester that doesn't involve alot of homework, not much studying and only once or twice a week. Well I found that perfect class. Birdwatching. It is the easiest thing I think I have ever taken. The only assignments are to sit outside two times a week and record what I see and hear with my birding guide, and once a week write a quick summary about the "field trip" we took the week before. Piece of cake.
So, the in class part is Friday nights from 7 to 8:30, not bad, I get off work at 4 I have time to get cleaned up and head out. Then Saturday morning we meet from 8:30 to 2pm, and this time we usually go somewhere to look for birds at like a park close to campus.
Well two days ago(Saturday) was our BIG final trip that is like 85% of our grade. Instead of staying close to Winter Park, we made the trek and met up at the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. Since I dont think ANYBODY who reads this knows what im talking about in the slightest, its about an hour's drive from my house, hour and a half from the campus. So we were supposed to meet up at a boat ramp at 7:30 am to drop off some cars and carpool together because its one of those driving tours where you stop every 100 yards to get out and walk around. 

The Sonj and I took my car and didn't quite volunteer to take anyone, but if someone wanted to ride with us we wouldn't turn them down, so we went into this thing thinking it was going to be miserable. It was amazing. We have to keep a tally of what birds we see and how many of each and the species topped over 50 and grand total was over 1000 birds. I got a few great pictures, sorry if the resolution isn't that good I took it off my crappy phone camera.

This is the first time we got out and I tried to take a picture over the girls head who was looking in the scope we had set up, we were looking at a family of wood ducks about 500 yards out. You cant see them in the picture but I promise they're there.

 This picture is just an odd gathering of rocks that I thought look pretty neat. I was trying to figure out a way to make it seem like those are super big boulders and its a really big drop off into the huge lake behind it, but then I realized the shadow of my camera was in it. So it's not boulders, its just rocks.

This is a really cool picture, it was the only path that wasn't paved in tromped over grass, we took this path to the dock about halfway down and apparently I wasn't the only one who thought it was a great photo-op, not only did Sonj and I pose in front of this long lane, but about half the class did also. 

This is by far my favorite picture, I like how you can see the line where the sun came from behind the clouds in the top of the picture.

The trip was so great and relaxing and I surprisingly had a blast. I only have one week of it left and am actually sad it will be over. It's such a fun class and exceeded every expectation I ever had for it. If you attend college or you know of a birdwatching class in your area, sign up, it may sound corny and you might not want to tell your friends about it, so just keep it your little secret and take it, its well worth it.