Wicked beasties

It's funny how you can move to another town a few miles away, and spot animals you've never seen before at the old place. (In Florida at least.)

For example, the so-called vinegaroons. They look somewhat like a cross between a big beetle and a scorpion. They're relatively harmless, but still look rather impressive (especially if you don't know what the heck it is!).

Then, we discovered that there are scorpions here. We are living on sand hills now, after all, which seems to attract the critters. Fortunately, Floridian scorpions don't get too big. They do have a tendency to enter people's homes, though.

Less creepy are the swallow-tailed kites that regularly roam the sky over our neighborhood. I guess it should be possible to see them anywhere in Florida, but for some reason we never saw them at the old place. Probably not enough wooded area.

I really like birds of prey. Here are a few interesting facts about these kites:

They migrate to South America every winter. Here's a tracking map of some birds, provided by the "Kite Site".
They are among the most adept and acrobatic fliers of all raptors. (This seems to be true... where most other raptors are content with circling and maybe "praying", the kites I've seen do all kinds of stunts in the air.)
They have a very distinct color pattern (black/white) and tail (forked), so they're easy to spot.