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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Eagle Lake Park

Baby mallard swimming around.


More babies.

The usual red winged blackbird.

Green heron hiding in the bushes.

There's a new park in town and it's called Eagle Lake Park. It's in Largo and it was the original home of the Taylor family who started one of the first citrus packing plants in Florida. Largo was original known as "Citrus City" back in the early 1900's. The park is beautifully landscaped with great bike paths, walking paths, boardwalks over the lakes and playgrounds. The original house built by the Taylor family in 1929 still stands there but I did not have a chance to check it out while I was there after work one day last week. There were a ton of people there and not too many birds. I walked halfway through the park thinking I wouldn't even take my camera out of my backpack. I found a handful of baby ducks in one of the lakes. Right before I was leaving I saw the above green heron hiding in the bushes. I'll try and check out the park later in the summer after the newness dies down. There is suppose to be several eagle nests in the park but I did not see any nests in the trees.

Roosevelt Wetlands

Beautiful glossy ibis. We don't see these very often in Pinellas county. This one looks like it's in full breeding colors.

Blue winged teal duck. We don't see these very often as well. I love the spots on his wing and the bold white stripe on his face.


Red winged blackbird making a lot of noise.

A belted kingfisher from very far away. These birds are very skittish. This picture was extremely cropped. This was the first time I had seen a kingfisher at this park.

The usual alligator.

The usual alligator snack food. Rabbits are showing up everywhere.

I made a quick stop at Roosevelt Wetlands after work one day last week. I needed to get out and walk around after sitting at my desk all day. This place is really a preserve instead of a park. There are no restrooms, playgrounds or real parking. There are houses sitting around half of the lake. You can usually find some different birds there. There were a lot of ducks hanging around the lake. I got my first decent picture of a blue winged teal above. There were several of them there and they stayed close together out in the middle of the lake. I plan to make a lot of stops at the wetlands now that it's still light after work and it's close by.

Birds at Kapok Park

Red winged blackbird taking off.


Limpkin

Moorhen seeing his reflection in the sunset.

Common grackle resting.

Blackbird

There were lots of different birds at Kapok Park this past week. Since the boardwalk was closed due to a fire I was not able to walk around most of the lake to see what water birds were there. It was right before the sun went down when I got there. Above are a few of the smaller birds I was able to find before it got dark along with a limpkin, who I heard a mile away from his loud call.

Roosevelt Wetlands

Tricolored heron braving the wind.

Immature blue heron. They are completely white their first 6-12 months and then start to turn blue.


My first northern mockingbird picture. This is the state bird. Florida Audubon has petitioned the state to change the state bird to the Florida scrub jay.

I took this picture into the sun and this is how it turned out without any editing. Looks like an Alfred Hitchcock picture.

My first female red-winged blackbird picture. I had to look this one up. Only the males have red on their wings.

Saturday I stopped by the Roosevelt Wetlands in Pinellas Park. It's a small lake that backs up to the back of the waste plant. There are always tons of birds there busy eating and swimming around. The cold and rain of Friday night must have driven them into hiding because early Saturday morning there weren't too many birds there. I did manage to find the few above. There were also 2 opsrey there. One was flying around but never tried to get any fish. The other was sitting on the empty nest post in the middle of the lake. Maybe this spring there will be babies.