Soft and Fuzzy

Baby mallards hiding in the grass.

More baby mallards floating by.

Baby swan (baby swans are called a cygnet).

Mom, is that my sibling?  Baby swan looking at an egg.

Baby goose trying to hide.

Baby swan preening.

Looking like a tissue paper commercial.

A walk around Lake Morton can produce some Ohhs and Ahhs. After spending all morning walking around the lake, I had to drag myself away to head back home to Tampa. So many babies, so little time. I wanted to stay and play with them all. People come to the lake to feed them. Once swans have babies, the babies and the parents are put in large pens along the lake until the babies grow bigger and then are let go. I think the swans were diminishing in numbers and the city of Lakeland were trying to get the numbers back up so they take extra care of the babies. There are signs that say "Don't feed the swans in pens." They get feed a special diet until they are released back into the wild. So all of the swan baby pictures are taken through the fence of the pens.

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Baby ducks growing up

I peeked out the dining room window and saw some ripples in the water. At first I didn't see them but the ripples looked like something big. I grabbed my camera and went out the back door as the mallard family went swimming by. They come close to the dock hoping to be fed. Some of the neighbors feed them but I'm restraining from it. They shouldn't grow up on stale bread. This mom had her webbed feet full with 8 babies. They stayed pretty close together.

Carillon Wetlands

Female anhinga panting in the heat. This one has pretty colors on her face.

My first brown thrasher. They're suppose to be fairly common but I haven't seen one before. It was getting dark and even with a flash I had a hard time getting this bird.

Alien duck!  (Baby moorhen)

Another alien duck in the shadows right before dark.

More alligator food.

There's a small wetlands park in the middle of an office park very near where I work. There are two small lakes, one is surrounded by office buildings and has a boardwalk around it. The other is surrounded by townhomes and has a walking path around it. I had heard there were bitterns there so I stopped by after work last week. I didn't find the bitterns but I found a few other things. Right before dark I found a moorhen with a baby. They are the funniest looking babies. Yes, both lakes have alligators so that rabbit better watch out!

Kapok Park after work.

Limpkin with a snack.

Follow the leader. Baby mallards following mom.

Red bellied woodpecker. You can barely see the red on it's belly.

It's checking to make sure it's a red bellied woodpecker as well.

Baby blue heron. This was taken in bad light but I thought it was interesting to see how the blue is starting to come out.

Tri-colored heron standing guard.

I stopped by Kapok Park in Clearwater on the way home from work last week. There wasn't anything unusual there. It was a nice walk anyway. It's a challenge to photograph there after work because the sun is going to down on the opposite side of all the best stuff. There's a lot of shade as well. The best time for the light is in the morning but I can't make it there before work so I go after work. I was really disappointed there were no great horned owls there. For the last 2 spring seasons a couple have raised a baby there. No owls this year. I'm going to try and get to the park quite a bit this summer. It beats sitting in traffic.

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Duck, Duck, Frog

It's that time of the year again. Baby ducks swimming by our dock!  This one had 10 babies. There were 2 females so it could have been 2 families hanging out together. It was late last weekend when the sun was just going down in the channel when I saw them. I struggled to get some decent pictures with the low light in the channel. The 2nd and 3rd picture I used the flash to get some extra light.  Then I saw some other ducks down at the end of the channel with the sun hitting on the water right before it went down in the trees.  As I was going back in the house I noticed the frog peaking out of our shutter.



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?

Neighborhood ducks getting big

The baby ducks having been hanging out in the channel in our backyard for a while now. I can't help but take more pictures. They are so cute. I wanted to get a few more before they grow up.

Baby ducks and moorhens

Muscovy duck family on the side of the lake.

What a cutie hiding in the reeds.



Big muscovy duck family.

Baby moorhen with mom.

Baby moorhen siblings.

There are still a lot of babies around this summer. A recent trip to Crescent Lake park revealed two families, a muscovy duck family and a moorhen family. It's funny how opposite these babies look. The muscovy babies are so cute when they are babies. They look like wood ducks or mallards as babies. Unfortunately, when they grow up they become one of the least attractive ducks. Moorhens, on the other hand, start out as the funniest looking aliens. Once that red beaks comes in they become pretty. I know, all babies are cute.

Waste plant birds

A group of great egrets looking at their reflection.

Four baby moorhens across the ditch. The parents were close by.

The duck snuck up on the spoony and spooked him.

Several families hanging out in the ditches at the waste plant.

Spoonbill watching me take pictures.

One day last week I stopped by the ditches that run along the Pinellas County waste plant. It was a rare day with no rain on the way home. The ditches were full from all of the recent rain and the birds seemed to be enjoying the sun and water. There was one spoonbill hanging out with a lot of other birds and ducks. At first he seemed interested in what I was doing but after a few minutes he went back to looking for food in the water.

Kayaking with ducks

Last weekend I went for a quick kayak trip in our neighborhood. It was windy and choppy so I stayed in the canals instead of venturing too far out in the open bay. There weren't too many birds around. There was a momma duck with one baby that showed up and paddled along side of me for a while. They were really cute. I guess they thought I would feed them. I know a lot of the neighbors feed the ducks in the canals. On my way back home I stopped to snap a blue heron that was watching me paddle by. It was the only other bird I saw besides the duck. The above were taken with my old point and shoot.