Hooded merganser couple

The male hooded merganser was swimming in the channel behind our house over Thanksgiving weekend. I didn't see the female that weekend. Well, this past weekend they were both there. It was right before the sun went down and they came fairly close to our dock. The female is the one without the white circle on her head. She does have a nice mohawk though. The last picture is the only time they were close together and it was almost dark. Last year they only stayed for a couple of weeks. I wish I knew where they moved on to. I guess they felt like our channel was too populated since there are houses all along the channels. 

Flying things at Epcot

There is lots of wildlife at Epcot if you just look for it. There are tiny sparrows everywhere (especially around the food areas).  The big lake that the countries sit around has lots of ducks. I saw mostly mallards there. The lake also had ibis and cormorants all around. We saw several people feeding the ducks. I found the ducklings in a small pond at the Canada exhibit. They were so cute and had a huge crowd watching them. That alone was worth the price of admission to a Disney Park, right?

Large flock of starlings - Skywatch Friday

Every once in a while I see a large flock of small birds buzzing around and I wonder "What are those little birds."  I was out at the celery fields in Sarasota recently and saw a flock flying on the other side of the lake. One minute they were in the cow pasture across the street and the next minute they were in the lake. They kept flying back and forth. I snapped a handful of pictures when they were headed into the lake and when I got home and zoomed in on them I realized they were European starlings. It's funny how close together they stay. It almost seemed like they were trying to take the lake with them. While this seems like a huge flock to me, they are found in flocks of over 1 million birds in England. Now that would be a sight to see.

For more skyscape photography from around the world, visit http://skyley.blogspot.com/.

Winter's Tale - the movie star that lives in Clearwater!

Last February I posted some pictures of Winter, the injured dolphin that lost his tail and learned to swim with a prosthetic one. A movie has just been made about his story starring Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr and Morgan Freeman here in Clearwater. The release date for the movie is some time in October of 2011. This past Saturday was the day of the wrap party and another baby dolphin gets stranded.  The team at Clearwater Marine Aquarium was getting ready for the party when they got a call to rescue a baby dolphin.

Check out the full story here - http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article1139837.ece

Check out Winter, the movie star here - http://www.seewinter.com/.

The aquarium is re-opening this week after being closed for filming for about 2 months.  I'm going to try and get there to see the new baby dolphin in the next few weeks.

Nature at Epcot - My World Tuesday

We usually try to go to Disney World at least once a year. It is only an hour away after all.  But how many pictures of the space ball or castle can you take? This fall we decided to go on Thanksgiving day. We heard it was one of the least crowded days of the holidays. Yea, right. We got there around 10am and almost all of the fastpasses were already used up. We did manage to go on our favorite rides. The countries at Epcot weren't too crowded. We had lunch in China and dinner in Italy. How's that for an international Thanksgiving.?  I tried to take different pictures of things at Epcot. Things that people usually never notice. Except for the above. The holiday decorations at night were fun.

Go and check out more MyWorld images at the MyWorld Site! http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

Tarpon Springs eagle visit

This past spring I had heard about an eagle couple nesting close to the road in Tarpon Springs (about 45 minutes from my house). I never did make it up there to see them.  I recently heard they were back and working on their nest. Last Sunday was so nice outside that I dragged hubby up there to see the eagles with me. A greek lunch in Tarpon Springs helped entice my hubby to go along for the ride. The Tarpon Springs sponge docks have the best greek food in Florida. 

So we're driving up there and I knew what road the nest was suppose to be on but not exactly where it would be. My hubby said "How are we going to find the nest?" I said "We'll just drive along looking for it, hopefully we'll spot the eagles as well." My hubby said "We may not be able to find it if the eagles aren't in sight when we drive through." I said "We'll find it, trust me." As we made our right turn and drove down the street we saw several cars pulled off the side of the road and a handful of people with big cameras standing there. My hubby says " I think we found them". He thought we'd be the only people looking for eagles and a nest.

That morning there was only one eagle sitting in the tree close by the nest. Several people said they had seen the other one recently but not that morning. The eagle sat there for a while then flew off so we headed to lunch. Below is the nest.  I'll be making some trips out there this spring to check for babies.

Sandhill cranes at Celery Fields

Does my toe look funny to you?

If you're not going to stop staring at yourself in the water then I'm leaving.

Hey lady, get my good side.

Where's my contact?

See, this is how you do it.

Yea, it's almost Christmas.

I was afraid my late afternoon stop by the celery fields in Sarasota was not going to produce any sandhill cranes. There were no signs of any my first hour there. I missed the whole two week window of 100's of cranes stopping by phenomenon. Well, I work in retail and it was almost Thanksgiving so what can I do. I finally get out there and no cranes? About half an hour before it got dark a few showed up. Most of them were across the lake where you can't get to including the dancing ones on the bottom but right as the sun was going down two of them wandered over to my side of the lake so all was not lost on the trip.