Backyard visitors

Green heron on my dock. You can see the neighbor's pool slide behind him.

The female kingfisher was yelling about something. That's her "I'm on alert." pose with her tail sticking up in the air. Once she saw me in the window she took off down the channel.

Juvenile red shouldered hawk on my neighbor's dock.

Yuck! It was so windy that morning, the osprey couldn't carry that big old fish all the way up to the top of the sail mast so he stopped on one of the bars lower down on mast.

Just a few birds from my backyard last weekend. All pictures taken through a window, either the bedroom or dining room.

  Our World Tuesday

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Kapok park - the Wilson's snipe is back!

Florida state bird (mockingbird) posing for me.

The Wilson's snipe that's back for the winter was hiding in the mud under some reeds.

Another eastern phoebe.

Red shouldered hawk sitting in the grass. I've never seen one just sitting there like that. I crept up to him and stood behind a tree watching.

He started pounding on something with his foot. He must have been trying to get a bug. He eventually took off but didn't have anything with him.

Small turtle basking in the sun.

I walked over to the Wilson's snipe an hour later to see if it had moved from under the reeds. He was still there and trying to sleep.

An early morning walk around Kapok Park in Clearwater did not produce anything exciting except the Wilson's snipe. This is the only one I've heard of being in the Tampa bay area. He hung out at this park for a short time last winter. I went there to look for the great horned owls. I had read that one had been sighted there recently. For at least 3 springs, the owl couple have had a baby but no luck this last spring. Here is my post from March 2010 - Great horned owl baby. They were sighted there briefly last spring but never did nest. I really hope they come back this year. I did not find the owl on my trip but I'm going to keep looking with my fingers crossed.

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Sunrise birds at Circle B Bar Reserve

Just before the sun came up, birds were flying everywhere.

Limpkin in the early morning light.

There's plenty of woodpeckers everywhere.

My only eagle sightings of the day were from far away.

This was the most photographed bird of the day. He must have sat in the same spot all morning as all of the photographers walked down the trail. Everyone at the photo walk that morning got the same shots.

Fish crows doing a blast off.

Pretty flowers everywhere.

All of the above where taken on my photo meetup walk at the beginning of November. There wasn't much bird activity out that day. After the exciting sunrise, we walked the trails and saw very little in the way of unusual birds. Everyone got excited seeing the red shouldered hawk and started snapping away. We saw several eagles from far away. At one point, two eagles were chasing each other high in the sky. It was cool to watch but then we were like "Did anybody get any pictures of that?" It happened so quick nobody got a shot. Things are picking up at the reserve. The yellow flowers are out in full force and a few migrating ducks have arrived.  More on those later.

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Chesnut Park

Female anhinga with something stuck on her beak.  These birds always strike nice poses. She's probably thinking "I hope you can photoshop this thing off my beak."

Pileated woodpecker stopping for a picture. There's a handful of them living at the park and even if I don't see them I can hear them calling loudly across the woods.

Red shouldered hawk sitting quietly. He was sitting very close to the boardwalk and stayed there while several people walked by and stopped to take pictures.

Some type of warbler.

Coots in the water. Coots are back for the winter and are everywhere.

A tiny alligator getting some sun.

The weather has cooled off a bit. The morning I went out for a walk at Chesnut Park it was windy and cool. The park is mostly wooded and the shade felt much colder than the sun. There was also a strong wind coming off the lake. Even the hawk was fluffed up trying to keep warm. There still wasn't a lot of interesting birds around. Only the usual that we see all year round. Except for the coots. They are here from the north by the thousands.  I only saw the one small alligator. I think since the wind was colder than the water, most of them were staying under water until later in the day.

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Hawk in the backyard

I knew something was going on when my cockatiels flew off their cage screaming. I peaked out the window and saw a hawk on my neighbor's fence. It's funny how the osprey flies up and sits on the sailboat mast and my birds look at him with indifference but when a hawk flies in front of the window they go crazy. Do they really know that the osprey only eats fish?  The hawk scared away all of the birds that were at my feeder so I went outside to scare away the hawk (with my camera in hand). The hawk did not want to leave. He let me get pretty close. I think this is a juvenile red shouldered hawk. We have a lot of adult red shoulders in the neighborhood.

As I was standing in my backyard waving my arms trying to shoo away the hawk, I see something flying towards me. It's a great blue heron. I think it had planned on landing on a dock in our corner but saw me standing there and kept on going.

This little guy was not scared off by the hawk. He let me stand under the tree and take his picture. I think this is a palm warbler.

A male house finch was also sitting in the tree.

Kapok Park after work

Little blue heron standing on the boardwalk rail. He didn't want to move. I finally walked around him.

"Yea! The kingfishers are back. Still haven't seen the one in my neighborhood yet but it's still early. Not a great shot because they are really skittish here.

Boring ole blue jay watching me.

Hawk flyby.

My first alligator sighting at this park.

Cute caterpillar.

Another walk around Kapok Park after work. It's getting dark earlier so I only had a little over an hour before the sun went down behind the trees. I was hoping to see the red tailed hawk again but could only find a red-shouldered hawk soaring overhead. Two kids on skateboards asked me if I had seen the alligator swimming in the middle of the lake. I'm thinking to myself  "In the 3 years I've been coming here I've never seen an alligator." I said to them "No, I haven't." They were so excited to point him out as he swam right towards the dock. It's amazing how alligators are so mesmerizing to kids. I don't know how long he's been in the lake. I always thought the baby duck count never seems to go down here like at other lakes. Maybe he's fairly new.

   Camera Critters

Nothing new at Circle B Bar Reserve

Black bellied whistling ducks says "Oh no, here come the photographers".

"Get my good side".

Red bellied woodpecker says "I'll stop for 4 seconds so you can take the picture. Then I'm back to banging on this dead tree."

Great blue herons says "I caught one this big."

Red shoulder hawk says "I'd be king of the jungle here if it wasn't for that annoying eagle."

Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland was calling my name. I hadn't been there since mid-May. It was still miserably hot there at the end of September but I had heard there baby limpkins there. There's no better reason than that to drive 50 minutes across central Florida. The reserve was pretty quiet. It's still a little early for many of the fall birds so there wasn't too many photographers out there. I didn't see the eagles flying around. I saw very few small migraters such as warblers. But, I did find the baby limpkins. They were so cute! More on those later.

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  Our World Tuesday

A Sunday in the backyard - Skywatch Friday

A hawk was sitting on my neighbor's sailboat in the morning.

Blue jay screaming at the hawk.

Blue-gray gnatcatcher sitting in the grapefruit tree. It's the first time I've seen a blue-gray in our backyard. I think he was watching the blue jay at the top of the tree.

Later, as the clouds moved in I noticed the downy woodpecker on the same (almost dead) grapefruit tree.

Another downy picture.

The resident osprey showed up later with a fish.

Creepy clouds moving in right before the sun went down.

Our grapefruit tree is going to have to go soon. It's about 75% dead. It covers around 25% of our backyard and has been there since the house was build back in the 60's. It's been great for shading part of the house and I'm going to miss it (except for picking up rotten grapefruit for half the year). I don't know what I want to replace it with. Something that's already half grown so we can get some shade fairly soon. We don't want another fruit tree since it's just too much work to pick up the fruit. Our soil is sandy and the tree would sit in between our house and the seawall. It would get lots of sun. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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