Backyard Birds

Juvenile blue heron walking around the channel during low tide.

Doves fighting over a spot on the feeder. Taken through the bedroom window.

Male house finch looking at me through the window.

Downy woodpecker in the grapefruit tree.

Yeah! An eastern phoebe sitting on my fence. Taken through the dining room window. My husband thinks I'm crazy when I go running through the house to get my camera yelling "There's a phoebe on the fence."  All he could think of was Phoebe from "Friends".

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Creepy crawler weekend

Moon peaking through the clouds in my front yard.

Spider web.

Creepy black spider at Chesnut Park.

My first praying mantis sighting at Chesnut Park.

Spiny orb-weaver in my backyard. We have two of them in our grapefruit tree. They are not poisonous.

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Boring ole birds at Fort Desoto and a missed sunrise.

Tricolored heron with a tiny fish.

Bye Bye. I love the way they skip over the water as they are taking off.

Pelican flyby.

Pelican diving for fish.

Lunch at the fish factory (Fort Desoto). The pelicans were diving for fish out in the bay.

It was a gorgeous Sunday morning. After sleeping in, hubby and I decided to head down to Fort Desoto to spend time on the beach. I decided to bring my camera and try my bird luck at the north beach marsh while hubby took a nap in his beach chair. There was almost no birds in sight. Instead I ran into a strange flock of photographers heading down to the north beach sanctuary. I joined them and we had no luck there as well.  The poor tricolored heron was doing some fishing so we all took tons of shots of him. Quickly he got tired of us watching him and flew off.

The big story of the day was the spectacular sunrise, which I missed by sleeping in. I got teased for letting sleep get in the way of a great sunrise picture. One of these days....   Check out what I missed -   Dan's sunrise video,   Jess's post,  Michael's post.

St. Petersburg at twilight - Skywatch Friday

Sailboat lessons going on in the bay. They were just coming into the sailboat basin when we got there. I noticed later when I downloaded the pictures that there's a dolphin coming up for air in the lower left corner.

Sailboat class in front of the pier.

The new Salvador Dali museum. I haven't been since the new building opened.

The sun going down on yacht basin.

The airport across from the St. Pete Yacht Club.

Clouds across the bay.

The St. Petersburg Pier at night.

Some views of St. Petersburg, Florida, from the bay side.

For more skyscape photography from around the world, visit Skywatch Friday.

Roll call in the backyard

Blue jays and doves are here.

 I think this is a house sparrow. I wonder if it's one of the birds that nested in the boat dock.

The osprey is on my neighbor's dock checking things out.

Two mallards trying to sleep just below the osprey.

Blue heron walking along the sea wall.

Female anhinga drying off on our fence.

Bird activity is picking up in our backyard. The osprey comes by every day for a while. I've been seeing the above anhinga hanging out in our channel for a couple of weeks. Still missing is the kingfisher that usually comes to visit every winter. Last year I had seen her by mid-October. It's still early so I'm keeping my eyes out for her.

Rainy day through the bedroom window

The resident osprey was eating lunch on my neighbor's dock. He usually eats on the sailboat mast but it was raining and really windy so he moved down to the dock.

He was tearing that fish apart. Yum!

Then I noticed a night heron on my other neighbor's dock in the pouring rain.  This was taken through the dining room window on the other side of the house.

Wet birds eating bird seed on ground. One seemed to be leaning on a grapefruit that had fallen off the tree.

Mockingbird in the tree.

The doves were all fluffed up from the rain.

A first that I've seen in my backyard. I'm going with a yellow throated warbler. It was hard to get a decent picture of him through the window. It was raining and he was hiding in all of those dead branches. But I was so excited to see him there.

Resting on a branch.

Two weekends ago I was sick. Out cold for 3 days with a sinus infection and sore throat. I picked a good weekend to get sick though, it rained most of the time so I probably would not have been out in a park anyway. Every couple of hours I would drag myself off the couch and peak out the window to see if there were any birds in the backyard. At least I had some interesting things come to visit. All of the above were taken through the window, which I need to clean since the rain is making them dirty again. Maybe this weekend.

  Our World Tuesday

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Backyard birds

Osprey sitting on my neighbor's sailboat.

Red bellied woodpecker in my palm tree.

Dove on the ground in my backyard. Taken through the bedroom window.

Dove sleeping under my bedroom window. I think this is a common ground dove. There's been a big family of them hanging around the feeder.

Blue jay is eating something in the yard.

As mad as I get at the squirrels for eating all of the bird seed, they do make me smile. They are so cute.

More shots from the bedroom window.

Chesnut Park - a new bird!

Pileated woodpecker

At first I thought this was a pine warbler. Then I found out from one of my flickr contacts that this was a yellow throated vireo. After studying them both the only difference I could see is that the pine warbler has light pink legs and the vireo has dark legs. Anyway, I was excited to see this guy. I had to use my flash since he was hiding in the trees so the background was blown out but I was able to get the details in the bird.

Male anhinga posing for me.

It was a quiet morning at Chesnut Park. The weather is starting to break a little and wasn't so miserably hot. There weren't too many interesting birds there. The highlight was vireo. There are so many types of little warblers and vireos. I was excited just to get a new bird. 

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