My first owl sighting

Baby great horned owl peeking out from the nest.

Same baby owl about a month later sitting on a branch.

One of the parents of above baby owl.

Screech owl in Christina's backyard. (Picture taken by Christina Button).

I recently watched a great movie on the Disney channel called Hoot. It's about a boy who moves to south Florida and meets new friends and tries to save owls from losing their homes to development. It made me think of the first time I saw an owl out in the wild. It was this past spring at a small park not far from work. I was walking around taking pictures and someone stopped me and said "Have you seen the baby owl?". They showed me where it was and I was hooked. The parents were close by in another tree. I went back to that park every other week during the spring and got pictures of the baby growing up. My friend Christina was telling me she gets screech owls in her backyard. She sent me the above picture to show how cute they are. I'm going back to that park often this spring hoping to see a new baby.

Wildlife at work

It's finally sunny and not freezing here in the Tampa bay area. I went out yesterday to get something to eat for lunch. As I was parking my car in the parking lot at work I looked over and saw a great blue heron hiding on the edge of one of the ponds on the property. I pulled out my camera and walked over and took a picture. Walking into the building I saw a little baby bunny heading under the stairs outside the building. He looked really tiny. I'm sure he's glad it's not so cold today. I hadn't seen any bunnies in a couple of months so I was surprised to see this little guy hopping around so close to the building. Maybe he was trying to hide from the cold hungry alligators. There are currently 7 on the property.

Birds of prey in the neighborhood

Osprey looking at his lunch.

Osprey flying off with his catch.

Red shoulder hawk sitting on the lamp post in the drizzle.

Belted kingfisher warming up in the sun on my neighbor's dock.

This weekend was really cold. By Florida standards anyway. Saturday it rained most of the day and never got over 36 degrees. Sunday was sunny but never got over 43 degrees. Some areas an hour west of Tampa got snow early Saturday morning. Needless to say I stayed in most of the weekend which I needed to do anyway to catch up on chores and have my water heater replaced. I did manage to take a few pictures of some birds that came to visit my neighborhood. The resident osprey came both days to each lunch on top of my neighbor's sailboat. Saturday I was looking out my kitchen window and saw the hawk sitting on the corner lamp post in the rain. I ran and got my camera and manage to take the above before he took off. Late Sunday afternoon the kingfisher came to visit. All pictures were taken through a window.

Baby shoebill stork at zoo

I'm going to try and get to Lowry Park zoo this weekend. Even though the high for both days will barely reach 40 degrees. A Christmas miracle has happened. The zoo just announced that on Christmas day a African shoebill stork baby was born. These birds are very rare and this is the first chick that has been born in North American and the 2nd in the world in captivity. Hopefully I can get a picture of it. Besides with this cold weather here it feels like all of the wild birds have flown even further south, maybe they all headed to the Keys. Normally there are always birds (egrets, moorhens and osprey) in the 3 ponds outside my window at work. This week I haven't seen any birds.

Attached is a picture of the baby shoebill with it's parents from TBO.com

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jan/07/pair-rare-birds-raising-chick-tampa-zoo/

Life of a spoony

Dirty beak.

Really digging hard for food.


What do you want!

Time for a nap.

I came across this roseate spoonbill this weekend and stopped and took a few pictures. I pulled off the side of the road and got out of my car with my camera. He just kept foraging and looking for food. He was making his way towards me but I don't think he noticed me at first. These birds are not very skittish birds. Finally after about 10 minutes he stopped and looked up at me like "What do you want?". Then he continued looking for food. A few minutes later he stopped and tucked his head in for a nap. I decided I needed one of those as well so I packed up and left.

Pinellas Park birds

American kestrel sitting on a security camera.

Small pond full of ducks. Most of these are lesser scaup.

Upclose of lesser scaup.

There's a pond close by work that has been full of ducks. Some say up to 800 in the pond. I left work a little early Thursday (it was New Year's eve after all). Instead of rushing out to party I went out in search of birds before it got dark. My first stop was the pond near work. It was full of ducks but they stayed pretty far away. The above picture is of a small portion of the lake. Most of the ducks were lesser scaup (also nicknamed "little bluebills"). These guys migrate from as far away as Alaska and Canada.

The first picture is of an american kestrel. This is the first time I have gotten a picture of this bird. I've only seen them a few times before. They are a type of small falcon. The picture looks to be a female (males have patches of grey on their wings). I'll have to keep an eye out for her around work. Maybe she'll have a nest this spring close by.

Atlanta birds

I was in Atlanta over the Christmas holiday and was able to get a few pictures of birds. It was fairly cold there. High around 48 degrees during the day. The first picture is some sort of sparrow. I think it's a house sparrow. It was on a sidewalk near a restaurant. Someone must have fed it a little piece of bread. The second is of a cardinal that I saw at Zoo Atlanta. We spent a morning there taking pictures of the baby (now a year old) panda. The cardinal seemed to be trying to eat the leaves. I know these birds aren't migratory but wouldn't it be nice if they would just fly south for the winter and get some warmth?