Crescent Lake Park

Green heron sitting on a metal stick that was in the lake.

A late bloomer. Mon only had the one with her.

A strange looking duck family. That white one is sticking his neck out like "Look at me!".

Wild parrot that lives in the water tower next to the lake. They hang out on the ballpark fence.

Staring at me like "What is she doing?"

Before I head over to downtown St. Peterburg to walk along the big pier on the bay, I like to stop at a small park nearby. Crescent Lake is surrounded by houses and small apartments and it's always busy with people jogging, walking and walking their dogs. The wildlife there is nothing spectacular but it does have a few neat things. A flock of geese live there all year. At first there were only a handful of them but last spring one of the couples had babies and now there's a big family of them. They are pretty aggressive because people feed them. There's a large flock of wild parrots living in the water tower at the corner of the lake and they are loud. I would hate to live across the street from that tower. Those parrots were squawking the entire time I was there. I can usually find the usual great egrets and great blue herons. On this trip I saw the green heron but he took off pretty quick. After a lap around the lake I headed to downtown St. Pete.

After work walk at Kapok Park

Great blue heron hiding in the bushes. I think I woke him up from his nap.

Tiniest frog I've ever seen. This is blown up. I almost stepped on him.

Mallards walking around keeping an eye on me.

Blue jay with a nut.

Male grackle shining in the sun.

Another hot walk around Kapok Park after work. Kapok is a small park right in the middle of some neighborhoods off a busy road. It used to be a trailer park and was turned into a water management project. It's named after the tall kapok tree that is an emergent tree in the rainforest that grows tallest over all the other trees. I couldn't find any information on how Clearwater Florida got some of these tree. In the winter there's a lot of unusual wildlife there but in the summer it slows down a bit. There weren't too many people there as well. Things were pretty quiet while I was there.

Last trip to the zoo for a while

Baby mallards swimming around the hyenna exhibit.

 

More pictures of the blue heron family.

Twin blue herons.

Lizard

Common ground dove.

I packed up my camera stuff and head out to the zoo for one last look at the baby spoonbills before they leave the nest. At this point they should be about 6 weeks old. I went straight to the nest and was in for a big letdown. They were already gone. The nest was empty. I guess they start taking off and wandering around at that point. There were only a few late blue heron babies hanging around. Now the alligator exhibit is just a boring water hole full of alligators. I was glad I made the effort to get there for 4 weekends in a row to see the spoonbills growing up. I did find an adult spoonbill sleeping high up in a tree close by. It was still a productive trip. I spent an hour walking around getting some exercise before the heat got to me. I'll probably not be back until late fall, maybe around November. It's just too hot now.

Alien babies at the zoo

"I'm not going in there."

"Look at my big feet."

"Big sis is blocking our way out."

"I am not ugly!"

"Gimmi kiss, Mom."

I found this moorhen family hanging around the ponds at one of the primate exhibits at Lowry Park Zoo.  After hanging out with the baby spoonbills, I walked around the zoo to see what else was going on. I think baby moorhens win the prize for the "Face only a mother could love" category. I think there were two families there because the one in the 2nd picture was much older than the other two. They all stayed close together though. It's that time of the year. Everywhere I go I see small black dots swimming behind momma moorhens.

Stop following me

"Hey, lady, where's the bread?

"Who us?"

"Don't turn around."

"We're walking over here now. We're not following you"

"I'm too cute to resist."

"Really, we were just looking for the lake."

I was walking around Lake Morton in Lakeland a couple of weekends ago looking for baby swans. As I was walking, these 2 baby ducks walked up to me. I'm sure they wanted to be fed since people are constantly feeding the wild things floating in the water. I said "I don't have anything for you. Go find some bugs." and kept on walking. I happened to look back and realized that they were following me. I stopped and said "I have no food." and tried to ignore them. A few minutes later I looked back and they were still following me. A man, sitting on a bench reading a book, started laughing. I walked by and he said "I think they're going to keep following you." I finally reached a spot around the lake where there a lot of ducks and geese and walked into the middle of them and the baby ducks got lost in the crowd. I snuck away and kept going. 

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Soft and Fuzzy

Baby mallards hiding in the grass.

More baby mallards floating by.

Baby swan (baby swans are called a cygnet).

Mom, is that my sibling?  Baby swan looking at an egg.

Baby goose trying to hide.

Baby swan preening.

Looking like a tissue paper commercial.

A walk around Lake Morton can produce some Ohhs and Ahhs. After spending all morning walking around the lake, I had to drag myself away to head back home to Tampa. So many babies, so little time. I wanted to stay and play with them all. People come to the lake to feed them. Once swans have babies, the babies and the parents are put in large pens along the lake until the babies grow bigger and then are let go. I think the swans were diminishing in numbers and the city of Lakeland were trying to get the numbers back up so they take extra care of the babies. There are signs that say "Don't feed the swans in pens." They get feed a special diet until they are released back into the wild. So all of the swan baby pictures are taken through the fence of the pens.

Check out more birds at

Baby ducks growing up

I peeked out the dining room window and saw some ripples in the water. At first I didn't see them but the ripples looked like something big. I grabbed my camera and went out the back door as the mallard family went swimming by. They come close to the dock hoping to be fed. Some of the neighbors feed them but I'm restraining from it. They shouldn't grow up on stale bread. This mom had her webbed feet full with 8 babies. They stayed pretty close together.

Carillon Wetlands

Female anhinga panting in the heat. This one has pretty colors on her face.

My first brown thrasher. They're suppose to be fairly common but I haven't seen one before. It was getting dark and even with a flash I had a hard time getting this bird.

Alien duck!  (Baby moorhen)

Another alien duck in the shadows right before dark.

More alligator food.

There's a small wetlands park in the middle of an office park very near where I work. There are two small lakes, one is surrounded by office buildings and has a boardwalk around it. The other is surrounded by townhomes and has a walking path around it. I had heard there were bitterns there so I stopped by after work last week. I didn't find the bitterns but I found a few other things. Right before dark I found a moorhen with a baby. They are the funniest looking babies. Yes, both lakes have alligators so that rabbit better watch out!

Kapok Park after work.

Limpkin with a snack.

Follow the leader. Baby mallards following mom.

Red bellied woodpecker. You can barely see the red on it's belly.

It's checking to make sure it's a red bellied woodpecker as well.

Baby blue heron. This was taken in bad light but I thought it was interesting to see how the blue is starting to come out.

Tri-colored heron standing guard.

I stopped by Kapok Park in Clearwater on the way home from work last week. There wasn't anything unusual there. It was a nice walk anyway. It's a challenge to photograph there after work because the sun is going to down on the opposite side of all the best stuff. There's a lot of shade as well. The best time for the light is in the morning but I can't make it there before work so I go after work. I was really disappointed there were no great horned owls there. For the last 2 spring seasons a couple have raised a baby there. No owls this year. I'm going to try and get to the park quite a bit this summer. It beats sitting in traffic.

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