Kildeer nest at work

Kildeer parent doing his "my wing is broken so come get me instead of my eggs" imitation.

Parent with eggs just behind it's feet.

Hovering over the eggs.

About 2 months ago, my friend Pam from work stopped by my office and said she had been seeing a small shorebird with brown stripes across his neck hanging around the back of the parking lot. I thought it might be a kildeer. We looked it and up and she said "That's it."  On my way out that night I drove over to the back of the area (we have 53 acres at work) and parked. I got out and was walking along the pond side and all of a sudden the kildeer went flying past me screaming. It landed in the pond close by and started acting funny. I thought "there must be a nest nearby." I looked around and in the mulch I saw the 4 eggs sitting there. Pam called Laura, one of the resident bird experts, who put out stakes around the nest the next day. For over 3 weeks I drove by there before work and after work checking for babies. I had my camera in the car every day hoping to see little kildeer running around. Pam's mom and aunt stopped by to get pictures of the eggs and we walked out there and the eggs were gone. No sign of broken eggshells. The parents seem distressed. We asked the property management people and didn't get any answers. We think maybe one of the contracted lawn service people might have seen them and picked them up. Not sure why or if this is what really happened but we were crushed. After weeks of peeking over there it was such a let down. Oh well, there's always next year.

Kapok Park in December

"Can someone please clean up my home?" says the night heron.

Warbler

Loggerhead shrike posed in the tree.

I couldn't find this duck in my Florida Audubon app. It was a surface feeding duck. I've never seen this one before.

My first kildeer shot. There were 3 of them but they are very skittish and I couldn't get them all together.

Muscovy ducks don't get much attention. This guy was watching me for a while when I was taking pictures of the kildeer so I turned around and snapped a few of him.

A quick pre-New Year's walk around Kapok Park provided a few new birds for me. This was the first time I had seen a kildeer that close and I had never seen a loggerhead shrike at Kapok before. Still trying to figure out what type of duck that was. It was all alone feeding near a group of limpkins and ibis. There seems to be a lot of trash in the lake. The only way to clean it up would be to get a boat in there. I'm sure with cutbacks there's no one maintaining these small parks. 

Celery Field variety of birds - Skywatch Friday

I parked along side of the road at the celery fields in Sarasota and the above was circling overhead.  Having a "turkey" vulture circle around you is almost like celebrating Thanksgiving. I don't think turkey vultures get the credit they deserve for being "cool" birds. They look great when they are flying high up in the sky. They look creepy when there's a group of them hanging out on the side of the road.  I did have a good visit to the celery fields the week of Thanksgiving and I'm going to try and get back before Christmas.

For more skyscape photography from around the world, visit http://skyley.blogspot.com/.

This red shouldered hawk couple sat on the light fixture the entire time I was there.

Any id on this would be great. At first I thought it was a palm warbler which are common here but there's no hint of yellow.  Could it be a hermit thrush? That's the closest I could find on Whatbird.com.

Flock of anhingas flying by.

Grackle can't read.

The above is a yellowlegs. Not sure if it's a greater or lesser. They look alike.

I finally see a kildeer and didn't even know it. The sun was going down and I wanted to get a picture of the shorebirds sleeping. I didn't see the kildeer in the upper left corner until later when I uploaded the pictures. The picture is extremely cropped. I can't believe that little bird snuck into my picture and didn't let me know he was there. There was a small flock of shorebirds together and he must have been hiding in them.