Florida Botanical Gardens

Osprey with a big nest in some kind of utility tower.

Female cardinal hiding in a tree.

Tufted titmouse. My first picture of this bird. He was hard to get hiding in the trees.

Anhinga drying off in the bushes.

Northern mockingbird.

Lots of birds out at the Botanical Gardens in Largo. It was a sunny day and starting to get hot. I knew we would go right from winter to summer. Not much of a spring this year. This was my first trip to the gardens where I did not see a single alligator. I know they are there but they must have all been hiding under the water.

Cardinal on my car

This weekend I stopped by the Florida Botanical Gardens to walk around. I had not been there since before all of the freezes that we had this winter. It looks like the gardens had a tough winter. There were a handful of volunteers there pulling up dead plants and trying to clean up. The beautiful black orchids that were along the fence at the back of the butterfly garden are completely dead. Just a handful of dead sticks on the ground now. What a shame. On a fun note, when I walked off the trail back to the parking lot I noticed the above guy sitting on my side view mirror. He kept flying down in front of the mirror to look at himself. Then he hopped on the front hood and was looking at his reflection in the windshield. I guess he finally realized there wasn't another bird there and took off. Luckily I hadn't put my camera in my backpack yet and was able to get a few shots before he took off.

Birds at Kapok Park

Red winged blackbird taking off.


Limpkin

Moorhen seeing his reflection in the sunset.

Common grackle resting.

Blackbird

There were lots of different birds at Kapok Park this past week. Since the boardwalk was closed due to a fire I was not able to walk around most of the lake to see what water birds were there. It was right before the sun went down when I got there. Above are a few of the smaller birds I was able to find before it got dark along with a limpkin, who I heard a mile away from his loud call.

Non-bird animals at Kapok Park

I stopped by Kapok Park on the way home from work one day this week. I was very disappointed to find out when I got there that the boardwalk that runs over the lake and along side of it had caught on fire last weekend. Part of it was completely gone. Park officials had the entire boardwalk fenced off. I'm sure it will be forever before it gets fixed. The boardwalk was a great viewing spot for all of the lake. I ended up wandering around the rest of park and did manage to see some other animals besides birds. There were 3 rabbits running around the park. I managed to get pictures of the 2 above. As I was leaving, I noticed a ripple in the water along the river before the big lake. I stopped and saw 2 river otters swimming around. They were moving fast and only stuck their heads out of the water but I managed to get the above shots.

Black necked stilts

I have only seen black-necked stilts a few times. They are a type of shorebird but I have not seen them on the shore (or beach as we call it in Florida). The ones I have seen were foraging in ditches and a lake. I found this bird all alone at Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland. They are very allusive and skittish birds. When they see a human coming they fly off quickly. I was able to snap a few pictures from far away before he saw me and flew off. They are very graceful walking with those long pink legs.

Sandhill crane family

I recently came across a sandhill crane family walking along Polk Parkway in Lakeland. I stopped on the side of the road to get a few pictures. There were 2 parents and 3 babies. I stayed pretty far away. I parked a little ways down the road and walked backwards towards them. I'm sure people driving by where thinking "What is this girl doing?". The family was very cute staying close together. They grazed around for a few minutes in front of me and then wandered off.

Baby owl in Clearwater

Baby owl sitting up.

The baby's giving me that "What do you want?" look.

Parent sitting close by.

The owl blinking. It's funny to see their eyelids.

Now that the time has changed, I was able to get out after work and stop by one of my favorite parks close by work. I saw the big owl sitting high up in the tree from pretty far away. I walked by the old nest from last year and wasn't sure what I'd find. Yea, there was a baby owl sitting in it looking right at me. It's only a couple of weeks old. I'm going to try and get there every week to track it's progress growing up. They grow up fast and then leave for up north before the summer.