Finally Fort Mose

It turned out that waiting until November for Fort Mose was an excellent decision! We had glorious fall weather, crisp and clear, from low 60s in the morning to mid-70s by lunchtime. The humidity had gone. It was a great morning to be outdoors.

There were so many paintable options to choose from. There were mosquitoes around but the park ranger, who kindly lent me some mosquito spray, said the mosquitoes had been 100 times worse back in early October - another good reason to have postponed!

 I could not get over all the birds in the park as well - with well over 50 wood storks roosting in trees and flying overhead,

 There were two bald eagles out on the big hammock in the marsh that hosts a great rookery for the birds in the spring.

The maniacal call of the pileated woodpecker echoed through the park too.

 The end of the larger boardwalk was a great spot to face out over the salt marshes.

 Though spots along the boardwalk were good options as well.

 Some folks chose to head over behind the museum building towards the smaller boardwalk.

 Despite the lovely weather the sun did feel intense as it warmed up, and that area provided some more shady areas to set up easels.

Though some smart folks did bring protective umbrellas which gave them more choices of where to paint.

 As we nearly always do we joined for a picnic lunch after the painting had ended. Some folks had packed up earlier and left, and didn't join us for lunch, but we still had enough of us there for two tables.

And we had a little show-and-tell as well. Because some folks left early I didn't get photos of what everyone had done, but here are some of the works from this morning, with the usual caveat that they are all in varying stages of completion.