March 21
Usual morning, lunch here, then to the movie “Duplicity”. It was fair. Then home for lite supper, wait until time to go to the airport. Diane and her girls, Brooke and Paige, flew in today. We picked them up at the airport at 8 p.m. We are really happy to see them. They had a long day - 2hrs from Chicago to Charlotte, 2 hr. layover, 2 hrs from Charlotte to Ft. Myers. We stopped at our trailer for a snack, then dropped them at their motel, the Springs, just down the road a mile.
FROM THE NEWSPAPER:
For the second time in as many years, a persistent pair of ospreys has built a nest on the edge of a roof of the Baypoint II on Bluebill Avenue [a condo area in Naples]. The nest might be a natural curiosity for the walkers and bicyclers who can glimpse it from the bridge over the Vanderbilt channel, but condominium owners consider the birds a messy nuisance and want the nest removed. The front door is out of droppings-range of the new nest, but it’s seven floors above and a little to the left of a grilling and picnic area. “You can stand out there, and the wind blowing, I mean you’re going to get covered with bird stuff,” Peter Page said. [Page is the Baypoint board president.] The condominium’s manager hired an environmental consultant, who applied more than a month ago for a nest removal permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Ospreys are not considered an endangered species, but the birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The idea is to get the permit before the birds lay eggs in the nest, which would prohibit the condominium from messing with the pile of sticks and branches until the young birds have fledged.