Osprey with a fish in the backyard.

Osprey on my neighbor's dock with a fish.

A blue heron lands on the same dock as the osprey.

Then I notice the blue heron is on the top of the boat lift with the osprey. The osprey doesn't seem to mind. He keeps eating his fish.

Eventually the osprey gives the blue heron his evil eye look and the blue heron flies off.

Right before dark, I see a great blue heron on my dock. Looking at something interesting. Maybe a fish?

Scenes from my bedroom window.

  Our World Tuesday

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Osprey and a parakeet - Skywatch Friday

"What's that in the sky? It's a bird, a plane? An annoying parrokeet trying to steal my nest?"

"I'm going to steal that osprey's nest all by myself since I don't know where all my friends went."

"I'm here now. Isn't that the Florida law? Once you establish residence, no one can kick you out?"

"That silly parakeet better not come around our nest. We'll serve him up to the eagle since we only eat fish."

I had read on a Florida bird forum post that there was a large flock of monk parakeets trying to take over an osprey nest at the Derby Lane parking lot in St. Petersburg. I stopped by there on a Saturday afternoon and only found one lone parakeet. All of the others might have been out feeding or just flown the coupe. There are at least 8 osprey nests in the parking lot light towers there. Only two had osprey sitting on them. It's a little early for osprey nesting but in another month or two that lot will be filled with osprey starting to couple up. The lone parakeet was sitting on a wire at first but then kept flying over to the nest and landing on the bottom of the branches. I could hear the osprey yelling but I don't know if that was because of the parakeet or another osprey flying overhead. There are large flocks of monk parakeets all over the St. Petersburg area. They are pretty when they fly by and you see a big flash of green but they are so loud. Since this lot is close by work, I'm going to keep tabs on it during the winter and spring to see if any baby osprey arrive.

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Backyard visitors

Green heron on my dock. You can see the neighbor's pool slide behind him.

The female kingfisher was yelling about something. That's her "I'm on alert." pose with her tail sticking up in the air. Once she saw me in the window she took off down the channel.

Juvenile red shouldered hawk on my neighbor's dock.

Yuck! It was so windy that morning, the osprey couldn't carry that big old fish all the way up to the top of the sail mast so he stopped on one of the bars lower down on mast.

Just a few birds from my backyard last weekend. All pictures taken through a window, either the bedroom or dining room.

  Our World Tuesday

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An eagle and an osprey at Honeymoon Island

My first eagle pictures of the fall 2011 season are not good. They were taken from far away and extremely cropped. They've been back in the Tampa bay area for at least a month now and I keep missing great shot opportunities. A couple of weeks ago I was on my way to the dentist for a 7:30 am appointment and saw 2 eagles sitting in a cell phone tower that sits right on a main road. On my way to work from the dentist an hour later they were gone. I haven't seen them there since but I know they are somewhere close by. I saw several eagles flying high up in the sky during my photo walk at Circle B Bar reserve but they were so far away I couldn't get a shot. This past weekend was beautiful so hubby and I decided to hike the nature trail at Honeymoon Island. We hadn't been since early spring. The eagle's nest sits all the way at the end of the trail. When we first got there we didn't see any eagles. We wandered around for a while and came back to the nest before hiking back to our car. As we stood there talking for a few minutes, one of the eagles flew in and landed on the nest. Then it flew to a nearby branch for a few minutes before taking off again. The park keeps the area where the nest is closed off so you have to watch from far away. The law states 500 ft from the nest but I've heard the nest is actually over 800 ft from the fence area. As we left, the park ranger said the female was sitting down close into the nest and she was sitting on eggs. Yeah, I'll have to head back there after the holidays.

The last two pictures are of an osprey that had just landed with a fish close to the trail. Soon the trail will be full of osprey starting to nest but it's a little early now. We saw just a few of them flying around.

  Our World Tuesday

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A Sunday in the backyard - Skywatch Friday

A hawk was sitting on my neighbor's sailboat in the morning.

Blue jay screaming at the hawk.

Blue-gray gnatcatcher sitting in the grapefruit tree. It's the first time I've seen a blue-gray in our backyard. I think he was watching the blue jay at the top of the tree.

Later, as the clouds moved in I noticed the downy woodpecker on the same (almost dead) grapefruit tree.

Another downy picture.

The resident osprey showed up later with a fish.

Creepy clouds moving in right before the sun went down.

Our grapefruit tree is going to have to go soon. It's about 75% dead. It covers around 25% of our backyard and has been there since the house was build back in the 60's. It's been great for shading part of the house and I'm going to miss it (except for picking up rotten grapefruit for half the year). I don't know what I want to replace it with. Something that's already half grown so we can get some shade fairly soon. We don't want another fruit tree since it's just too much work to pick up the fruit. Our soil is sandy and the tree would sit in between our house and the seawall. It would get lots of sun. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Pouring rain to rainbow - Skywatch Friday

The resident neighborhood osprey sitting on my neighbor's dock in the pouring rain.

He usually sits on the sailboat mast but I guess he got tired of it rocking in the rain.

Now it's just a sprinkle and the sun was starting to come out. I got to thinking. If the sun's out on this side of the house and it's still raining on the other side, I should check to see if there's a rainbow somewhere.

I opened my front door and saw this. I grabbed my camera and took this and the one below in my driveway.

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Kapok Park after work

Red winged blackbird yelling at me to get off his boardwalk.

Juvenile blue heron. He must be getting close to hitting that one year mark. Blue herons are born all white then over the course of their first year they change to blue.

Red bellied woodpecker getting a snack.

I was leaving and it was just starting to get dark. There's a deep ditch close by the small parking area. I heard the limpkin calling before I saw him. It was dark down in the ditch so I turned my flash on and took the below picture. I realized the ditch was full of snails. There were 3 limpkins in the ditch having a feast. This was right before the heavy rains started so the water in the ditch was pretty low.

One of the million dragonfly pictures that I will take. When birding gets slow in the heat of the summer I start shooting dragonflies.

One of the normal sights I see on my drive home. Osprey sitting on the light post. A couple of weekends ago, hubby and I were on our way back from the beach and counted 28 osprey sitting on lightposts on the big bridge across the Tampa bay. That broke the record of 22 from several summers ago.

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A stop on Gandy Bridge beach.

Least tern.

Juvenile least tern.

Osprey with lunch. Made me hungry.

He decided he didn't want an audience. He was sitting right on Gandy bridge eating.

"Doesn't anyone want my gift?" said the lonely least tern.

On my drive home from Fort Desoto, I stopped along the Gandy bridge beach. All I found were a lot of least terns. That's about all that was there. There were a few cars parked on the beach and a couple of dogs running around so I'm sure only the bravest terns were there. I managed to find a juvenile least tern which was a first for me. As I was getting bored and ready to leave, an osprey flew over my head with a fish. He landed close by on a utility wire right on the main road. He ate a few bites then took off over the water.

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Boat trip in Tampa Bay - Skywatch Friday

Hubby getting the boat ready. He didn't realize he had a visitor sitting by the lamp watching him. This is the first time I've seen an egret get so close. I guess he heard the boat motor and thought we were coming back with some fish.

Ibis and 2 laughing gulls fighting over a dead horseshoe crab.

Spotted sandpiper bobbing up and down the beach. He stayed pretty far away.

Osprey looking for lunch. That's the Bucs football stadium behind the airport parking deck in the background. We were on the other side of the bay.

Mallards swimming by.

Osprey catching a fish in the bay.

I noticed this bulldozer tearing down mangroves along the water.  I thought it was now illegal to do that. Not sure what they're doing.

Tampa from across the bay.

We took our boat out recently and heading for a small lagoon near the St. Petersburg/Clearwater airport. It's usually quiet there and we rarely see any other boats. There's a small beach there and we call it the "horseshoe crab graveyard". The beach is always littered with dead horseshoe crabs. I don't know why they end up here. Maybe the tide and the way the waves are flowing. Sometimes there are shorebirds hanging around. We anchored and swam over to the beach and walked around. Although, as soon as we start swimming onto shore the shorebirds take off. I hate scaring them away from their small piece of paradise. Last time we were there it was still a little cold and the water near the beach was full of stingrays so I stayed in the boat. I'm all for the stingray shuffle but when there's not even an inch to put your feet down I get creeped out. We stayed for a while and watched the small commuter planes land and take off at the small airport. I was a little disappointed we didn't seen any dolphins or manatees this trip.

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