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.

Christmas lights

I haven't put too many Christmas decorations in the house but I did manage to put some really tacky ones outside the house. I wanted to make sure we blended into the neighborhood. Lights on the palm trees and lights in the bushes did the trick. This season I wanted to work on my holiday light photography. I started by taking a few pictures in our front yard. My plan for next weekend is to get out and see some of the big light displays in the Tampa bay area.

Kapok Park birds

Blue heron looking for food in the reeds.

Kingfisher on top of a small tree in the lake.

Great blue heron getting ready to take off.

Snowy egret braving the high winds.

This past Saturday started with rain. Then high winds moved in. I was still determined to get out and get some pictures. Since the weather was still iffy I decided to stay fairly close to home and made a trip to Kapok Park. There were a handful of birds out braving the rain and wind. I still haven't see the owls since last Spring. I hope they come back again this winter. Nor did I find any woodpeckers or limpkins which are usually there. I'll have to make another trip in a couple of weeks.

Ducks in the channel

This weekend there were 3 hooded mergansers hanging around the channel in our backyard. Two males and a female. In the 5 years we have lived in our house it's the first time I have seen them here. We always get lots of mallards. They stayed right in the middle of the channel and when they saw me walking out on the dock with my camera they started to swim down to the other end. These pictures were taken with my 500mm and highly cropped. They eat fish like cormorants and anhingas and dive down in the water to get the fish. I hope they stay for the winter.

Sushi in the windy city

The title does not refer to a nice resteraunt in Chicago. It refers to the 2 osprey I saw eating fish at a lower than usual perch. It was very windy today after the rain passed through. I ventured out after lunch to test out my new Nikon D90. It was dark, cloudy and windy but as long as drops weren't falling I was going out. I stopped by the Safety Harbor fishing pier and saw the osprey in the first picture at the entrance to the yacht basin on a short pole in the water. There are mangroves on three sides blocking most of the wind. The last three pictures are of an osprey sitting on a low utility wire on the Courtney Campbell Causeway. He was at the light on the causeway so I turned off and got out to take a few pictures. It was so windy I could barely get my car door open. This guy was having trouble staying on the wire. It seems like it would be easier for him to go hide in a tree.

Babies at the zoo

Baby colobus monkey recently born at the zoo. This little baby was so cute running around playing in the morning. As of Thanksgiving weekend they had not determined the sex yet.


Baby "Jaya" was born in July. She still looks very small next to Mom.

This little orangutan was born last year but is still so tiny.

We're going into winter mode here in Tampa and there are still a handfull of babies at the zoo. The colobus was so cute running around playing with the other monkeys. There's also a new siamang gibbon baby but I was unable to get a picture of it. The white tiger cubs are now so big that it's hard to tell them from the mom. They are still very playful in the morning if you can get there before noon.

Unusual friends

A recent trip to the zoo uncovered the most unusual friends. There is a large pen that houses key deer (deer that comes from the Florida keys) and whooping cranes. I always check out this area when I'm at the zoo looking for the one eyed deer. Last year I saw a special on PBS about an orphaned deer with an injured eye that was found wandering alone. He was brought to the Lowry Park Zoo to be rehabilitated but because of the permanent loss of one eye he lives there now. I was leaning over the railing looking for him and noticed that a whooping crane was preening one of the deer. The crane was cleaning the deer's ear and nose. It was so funny to see these 2 different animals being best friends.