My first spoony babies!

"Listen Mom, I have to tell you something."

"I can't get comfortable."

"Who's your favorite, Mom?"

"Look at my pink wings!"

"Three's a crowd."

"Don't poop on us Mom."

I stopped by Lowry Park zoo for a quick visit to check on the spoonbill nest. What a nice surprise to find 3 babies on the nest. They were so cute! I spent about an hour taking pictures. If I had my camera pointed at the nest, people would stop and notice the nest above the alligator pond. If I wasn't taking pictures, most walked by without even noticing the nest. People where noticing the big alligators laying below. They were mesmerized by how big the alligators were. The babies were my first spoonbill babies. They were light pink and fuzzy. I hope they don't outgrow that nest too fast. I'm going to try and stop by each weekend to keep track of their progress.

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Baby birds at the zoo

Baby tricolored heron. I took this right into the sun. I do like the way it lights up his white fuzz.

Adult blue heron. Standing on the alligator boardwalk. Taking a break from the screaming babies.

Baby blue heron profile.

Screaming baby blue herons.

Great egret feeding it's baby. This family was high up in the trees.

Baby night heron staring at me.

The Lowry Park zoo in Tampa has a great little bird rookery at the alligator exhibit. It's not as big as the one at Gatorland in Orlando, but hey, it's 12 minutes from my house. As you walk along the boardwalk you can hear the babies crying. It's mostly blue herons and great egrets but there are a few night herons and tricolored herons there as well. There is one spoonbill couple and I'm hoping they have babies soon. I'm going to check back again for that one.

Baby hawks and the usual birds at Circle B.

Limpkin eating a snail on Alligator Alley trail.

This looks like an immature red shouldered hawk.

Immature little blue heron turning blue.

Two of the smaller baby red shouldered hawks.

The older sibling.

My first hawk babies were seen at Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland. A red shouldered hawk couple had built a nest behind the barred owl's nest. The barred owl babies had flown the coupe when I got there but a nice surprise was behind the nest. I could hear the baby hawks screaming. The birds were very far away across a river so the above pictures are highly cropped. Things are starting to slow down at the reserve. It's getting hot there and all of the migrate birds are almost gone or will be gone soon. All of the babies are growing up fast. I'm going to try and head out there one more time before the summer heat sets in. Then it's more trips to the coast where at least you get a sea breeze.

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Busy mothers at Gatorland

Mom's on the left with her hands full tending to 2 fast growing babies. They were yelling at her to feed them.

At some point later in the morning I realize she is feeding the babies. She eats the food first and then regurgitates it back to the baby.  Yum!

These 3 babies were busy. They belong to the mom below.

More "feed me" squawking going on. I think the mom was ignoring them.

Where did mom go with the food? I think that's what they were discussing.

All of those bird moms out there in the wild taking care of their babies get no recognition. They sit on them to keep them warm, shield them from the rain, fight off predators and choke back up their food to feed the babies. Sounds like a fun job. But the good news is they only do it for a few months and then they have the free life again, until next spring. I doubt the babies come back to visit on the holidays. I'm sure they don't send cards or flowers. The babies just take off one day and are gone for good. Some human moms out there might be thinking "That sounds good to me." I know when I was in college my mom would say "When are going to move out? "  And then when I did she constantly asked "When are you coming to visit?"

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there, including animal moms.

New babies at Gatorland and a sad story.

I think this snowy egret was born the day before I was there. It was huddled under mom.

Baby anhinga looking up at mom. This was the first time I have seen a baby anhinga. There were 3 babies on this nest.

Baby great egret peaking over the branches.

Warning - my sad story starts with this bottom picture. There were 3 baby snowy egrets on this tiny nest when I first got to the bird rookery at Gatorland. Later in the morning I was watching this particular nest. One baby looked much younger than the other two, maybe by a few days. I then realized that the mom was holding the smallest baby by the foot. It then dawned on me that the mom was pushing the baby out of the nest. The baby didn't fall right away. It's other foot seemed to have gotten caught on a branch. In the picture the back baby was watching the other one fall. You can barely see the little legs sticking up on the far left. There were a few other photographers watching at that point. I've read about how parents or other siblings will kick out the runt if there isn't enough food or room on the nest but to see it happen was strange. The nest was too far away from the boardwalk for anyone to reach and alligators were waiting down below in the water. To make matters worse, I had heard that morning that a lot of babies were lost in the big storm that had moved through Orlando the week before. Even though the day ended on a sad note, there's still lots of babies being born there every day.

Is this a brown cowbird or female grackle? - Skywatch Friday

I was standing on the boardwalk at Gatorland quietly waiting for the baby birds to wake up. I see some movement in the bushes in an area where there aren't any egret or heron nests. All of a sudden I see this tiny brown bird pop up. I started taking pictures of it and several other photographers came by and said it was a brown cowbird baby. It looked to be several weeks old. The nest seemed to be hidden down into the bush. The parent bird (last picture) kept flying over to check on the baby and would fly off again. The parent never stayed long and I didn't see it feeding the baby. Eventually the baby crawled back deep into the bushes. This one had just enough fuzz on the top of it's head to make it cute. As I was looking through my bird books I thought, this really looks more like a female grackle. The female grackle has a longer beak than the cowbird but they should have yellow eyes. But not all of the pictures I found on the web showed the female grackle with yellow eyes. I'm stumped. Any thoughts? 

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Sandhill Crane Family at Circle B Bar Reserve

"Look mom, I can touch my tummy!"

"Am I a boy or a girl?"

"Wait for me!"

"Yuck, I'm not eating that bug!"

"Ignore the big bird behind me."

"Thanks for the snack, Mom."

"I hate getting wet."

Another serious "too cute" moment, but sad as well. Back in mid-February, I was able to get shots of the sandhill crane on a nest with eggs in the middle of the marsh. A couple of weeks ago I had read that the babies had hatched and were moving around the park with the parents. I saw several pictures of 2 babies posted on flickr but by the time I was able to get out to the park one of the babies was gone. No one knows what happened. Could have been an alligator or bobcat.  I found the family wandering around Heron Hideout trail (along with a long line of photographers). I took my place along the side of the trail and started snapping pictures. The parents stayed really close to the baby and kept feeding it. It was mesmerising to sit and watch the family walk around. They didn't seem to mind the large group watching them since everyone stayed pretty far away and didn't crowd them. After a while the family moved closer to the closed Rabbit Marsh trail and I headed back to my car.

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Baby eagles, parrots mating and a starling

Getting a bite of fish.

Feeding the baby although it looks more like a kiss.

The parent is looking at something.

Both babies are visible.

Baby is flapping it's wings.

One of the parents flying by. I know I shouldn't post this since I cut one wing off but I couldn't resist. He flew so close to me so fast.

A lone starling was sitting in a tree close by.

Wild parrots making whoopy.

The recent Sunday started out sunny but later in the day as I was on my way to check on the cemetery eagles in St. Petersburg it started to get cloudy. The closer I got to the cemetery, the cloudier it got. There was a small chance of rain and it looked like we were going to get it. White and gray clouds do not make for a nice background but hey, when you are watching a bald eagle feed it's chick you get over it real fast. They had just started eating when I got there so I missed the big "parent flying in with a fish" moment. After the eagles finished eating and had settled down in the nest I noticed a few other birds around me. I found a lone starling which I though was strange. Usually they are in big flocks. Right as I was leaving a parrot couple landed in the tree near my car and quickly got down to business. I wonder if they have a nest in the cemetery. It would be nice to see the baby parrots growing up.

Thirty minutes with a sandhill crane baby

Mom, I'm bored.

Oooo, that's a scary looking bug.

Mom, come this way.

Mom, I don't see it!

Mom, don't push me out of the way.

I'm a big girl now.

I feel like I usually don't get this lucky. A couple of weekends ago, on my trip to Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park with my sister, a sandhill crane baby had been born a few days before. A volunteer told me the parents are 3rd generation cranes that were born at the park from a permanently injured crane that lived there years ago. A wild mate found the resident crane and took up residence with it. The ones born since then can come and go but usually stay. This little baby was so cute and curious. It was running around looking at everything but not straying too far from the parents. Sandhill cranes are born in a nest low on the ground instead of in a tree. Unlike smaller birds who have to spend many weeks growing up in the nest first, the sandhill crane baby is usually mobile within a day or two of being born. The parents start grazing and are on the move within the first day. I must have walked around the big bird enclosure for at least 30 minutes. Finally, I had to run off and find my sister who had long moved on.