Rainy day wildlife

Night heron in the trees.


Great egret preening.

Spoonbill looking for food.

Black neck stilts and an oystercatcher looking out the window.

American crocodile yawning.

I finally have a day off and it's pouring outside. Where do you go to practice taking pictures of birds when it's raining? The Florida Aquarium. Yes, they have fish but fish are boring. They just swim around in circles. The aquarium has a wide variety of birds in the wetlands exhibit. You can get pretty close to them as they seem to be tame and use to all the noise and people around them. They just keep eating or preening.

Davis Islands at sunset.

Semipalmated plover on the beach near Davis Islands Yacht Club.

Night heron prowling for food before sundown.


Oystercatcher flying away before dark.

Osprey sitting on a light pole looking in the water for dinner.

With a perfect sunset like this how could anyone stay indoors, other than the fact that it was 92 degrees at 7pm on Sunday. A few birds were out getting that last minute dinner in before it got dark. I walked around the jetti at the end of the airport runway to the Davis Island Yacht Club. Considering there were lots of people around walking dogs, riding bikes and hanging out there were a handfull of birds around. The oystercatchers are the most skittish. If they see someone coming from miles away they will take off. The other birds just took all the people in stride. Soon the weather will be cooling off a little bit and there will be tons of people there on the weekends.

Wild Bird Rescue Workshop

Barbara from the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary conducts a workshop on rescuing injured birds.

Barbara and Liz show how to properly hold a cormorant and anhinga when helping an injured bird.


Ralph Heath, the founder of Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, stops by the workshop to thank everyone for coming. He started it 35 years ago.

Permanent resident at the sanctuary coming out of the pool. He is missing the top of his beak.

Another permanant resident pelican going in for a swim. He had a wing that was permanantly injured. He was looking at me like "come in with me".

Saturday was October 10th and still 95 degrees. I braved the heat and went to a wild bird rescue workshop at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. They reviewed all of the different situations that could happen when you see an injured bird out in the wild and how to handle them. Some might be fairly easy with proper equipment such as catching a pelican with a net, removing the hook from the beak the correct way and releasing the bird. They reviewed situations and types of birds where it's best to call the sanctuary for an experienced rescuer to come out. Liz (pictured in first 2 pictures on the right) is their experienced rescuer at the sanctuary and she had some great stories to tell and a few sad ones as well.

Liz spends a lot of time on busy fishing piers rescuing hooked pelicans and cormorants and trying to release them there if they are well enough. She shows fishermen how to properly pull up a hooked pelican, cut the hook and release. It's so important that the fisherman don't just cut the line with the hook still in the pelican which can then get tangled in mangroves, etc.

It was a fun morning and I learned a lot about the tough life of birds around the coast as well as how hard they work at the sanctuary. Please stop by there if you are in the Tampa Bay area. No admission but they welcome donations.

Birds of a feather

Flock of snowy egrets hanging around Fort Desoto shore at sunset.

Group of white birds (great egret and ibis) in a big old tree at Fort Desoto. I wonder if they'll sleep there. It was sunset.


Ibis looking for some last minute food before dark.

A group of shorebirds all together getting ready for bed.

Close up of above - skimmers, oystercatcher, godwits, willets.

Last night I went to Fort Desoto after work to catch some sunset pictures. There were lots of large flocks of birds everywhere. It looks like they were getting ready for bed or getting some last minute bed time snacks. I guess they think there is safety in numbers at night. The fishing pier was busy with people fishing and birds were still hanging around looking for a handout even after the sun had gone down. It was a beautiful sunset (even though it was still 90 degrees). I'm sure it rivals any sunset in Key West. I have several pictures in my flickr stream of it.

American Oystercatchers

This week I went to a presentation on american oystercatchers in the Tampa Bay estuary put on by the Clearwater Audubon Society with help from the Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuary Program. These birds are a "species of special concern" by the Audubon Society. The Tampa Bay area has over 18% of the oystercatcher pairs in the entire state of Florida. Oystercatchers mate for life (like penguins). They nest on beaches and there aren't many of those left that are not being trampled on by people. There are several protected islands in the Hillsborough bay that are off limits to people for these birds to nest on with big signs that explain why you cannot tresspass on these islands. Boaters still land on these islands and spend time playing on them even with their pets. The oystercatchers are declining due to these types of behaviours.

What can you do? Stay out of protected areas. Don't let your dogs run unleashed on beaches. Keep pets off beaches where they don't belong. Stay far away from bird nests and eggs on the beach. If the oystercatcher parent is scared away from the nest the eggs could cook in the hot sun in less than 20 minutes. The eggs need the shade the parent provides.

A year ago I never really noticed these birds. At first glance I thought it was another skimmer. They are so rare to see. They are very skittish and will fly away quickly. It's hard to get good pictures of them, they have to be cropped up closely. Now I am always looking for them.

Terns and dolphins

Lots of terns on Fort Desoto beach.

Ruddy Turnstone on the fishing pier hiding behind the rail.

The hubby and I spent Sunday afternoon at Fort Desoto park. It was a sunny gorgeous day. I spent some time walking the fishing pier. There were dolphins everywhere. They seemed to be trying to steal fish away from the fishermen as they were catching fish on lines. Several times fishermen thought they had caught something only to have the dolphin show up and take the fish off their line. They were not happy. The dolphins were swimming right up to the pier.

The beach was full of terns. There were huge flocks of the them resting on the edge of the beach. Every once in a while someone would be walking down the beach and they would fly in a circle and come right back down to the beach. It was weird to see so many terns and so few gulls.

Lunch birds

Spoonbills and storks - "Who's the crazy lady in the car with the camera?"

"Should we leave?"



"Storks - "I'm not leaving, the food's too good here."

Back to eating.

I had a very productive lunch today. I ran out to get some lunch and came across this group of birds on the side of road eating out of a ditch. We haven't had rain in a couple of days but there was a little water in the bottom. They were very busy and didn't notice all of the heavy lunch traffic going by. I just had to pull off to the side road and take a few snaps.