Hanging with the shrikes

I see the first shrike of the day on a wooden bench.

Then I realize there's a few more shrikes in the trees. I sat on a picnic table under the tree and was watching them. One flies onto the picnic table with a worm in it's mouth. It seemed to be showing me his catch. I had to get up and back up since he was to close to get a picture.

I spotted another one with a worm on the ground.

I finally started to leave and stopped along the seawall to take a picture of the jellyfish. This little guy flies down and sits right next to me. Was he trying to tell me something? He then flew over to the nearby tree. I followed him and took the below picture.

On my recent trip to Davis Islands, I must have seen at least 10 loggerhead shrikes. The most I've ever seen together at one time is 3. They were everywhere in the trees that run along the sea wall. They acted like they were used to having people around and got pretty close to me. They are tiny songbirds that hunt their prey like a hawk. I've always had a hard time getting decent pictures of the face with the black mask trying to hide their eyes. I was happy the sun was out and gave off good light that morning. I did use my flash on the one with the worm since he was sitting under the tree in the shade.

Birds in a cow pasture.

American kestrel.

A pair! First time I've seen more than one.

Loggerhead shrike

Cow (for all you city folks).

Another cow.

I don't see cows that often around Tampa. Just on the highways on the way to Lakeland or Orlando. I headed up to Hernando county (about an hour north of me) to find some swallow tail kites. I had read on the Florida bird forums that there were big flocks of them flying around some dirt roads. I found those kites (posting those later) but also found a few other cool things. Yes, I think cows are cool. I should spend a day on a farm milking them. Then I might not think they are so cool. But they make cute pictures. I really like the white cow above. She looks like she should be wearing a bonnet. I also found a family of kestrels but they were pretty skittish.  Somehow I managed to find the tiny loggerhead shrike. I almost drove right by it thinking it was probably a mockingbird. I also saw tons of cardinals and doves. I would have liked to have seen a meadowlark (I heard there were some there earlier) but didn't catch that one.

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The St. Pete Pier - Skywatch Friday

Pelican flying in front of the Vinoy hotel.

Stretching. Notice the tangled fishing line around his leg.

Red bellied woodpecker in the parking lot.

Two loggerhead shrikes getting frisky. I was surprised to see them hanging around the pier. The couple were chasing each other around the fence near the the sailboat basin.

Loggerhead shrike sitting in the grass.

I hadn't been to the St. Petersburg pier in a while I so headed out on a recent hot Saturday morning. This was right before the non-stop rain moved in. It was sunny and hot. It was a quiet morning around the pier. Not many birds hanging around but I was excited to see the loggerhead shrikes. I didn't expect to see them in populated place right on the bay. As I was writing this I was thinking I was glad I didn't see any tangled or injured birds on this trip. Then as I made the pictures larger once they were downloaded, I noticed the pelican with the fishing line tangled around his leg. I didn't see that when I zoomed in to take the picture. I won't even start my "fishing should not be allowed on fishing piers" rant.

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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. 

Loggerhead shrike 1, Dragonfly 0

I was driving into the parking lot at the fishing pier at Fort Desoto and noticed a strange looking bird sitting on the utility wire. I thought "Wow, that's a loggerhead shrike." You don't see them very often in this area. I drove over to it and parked and got out of my car with my camera. He was holding some kind of dragonfly. He seemed to enjoy having me watch him eat his catch. After he gulped down the dragonfly he cleaned his beak on the wire and then flew away.