Rainy morning in a cemetery

Blue jay sitting on a snag.

Dove sitting on a grave marker.

Eagle sitting on the nest.

A pair of pileated woodpeckers sitting on a tree.

Pileated woodpecker sitting on a utility pole.

Two weekends ago we had nasty weather all weekend.  Saturday morning I woke up to dark gray skies. I checked the weather on line and it looked like I had until sometime around lunch before the rain hit. I decided to head down to the St. Petersburg cemetery to check on the eagle's nest. Only one of the eagles were present sitting on the nest. There were two other people there that had also stopped by. They both had heard there were babies but they were not big enough to see yet. Even though the other eagle did not show up while I was there, I saw several other birds. Three pileated woodpeckers stopped by all at one time. That's the most I have seen together. Two stayed together and the other was close by. After waiting around for over an hour for the other eagle, I decided to leave and head to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary before the rain hit. 

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Georgia birds and a chipmunk

Red bellied woodpecker  Yellow bellied sapsucker up in my in-laws' tree.

There were tons of these little birds high up in the trees. I think it's a type of warbler. It's almost impossible to get pictures of them. They don't stay still for a second.

Female cardinal.

Blue jay high up in the pine tree.

Chipmunk with a cheek full on my in-laws' back deck.

Hubby & I spent Halloween weekend in Atlanta with his family.  He was turning 50 and wanted to spend it with them. We got to Atlanta early Friday afternoon and as soon as I got out of the car I heard birds calling from everywhere. His parents have a large yard with old growth pine trees all around. After unloading the car, I spent an hour walking around the yard looking for birds with his mom. She said the woodpeckers have been annoying lately. They've been banging on the side of the house.  They're going to need to keep an eye on that so they don't get any real damage from them. My goal for this trip was to get a some shots of chipmunks. I only got the one above. I've never seen them in central Florida. My other goal was to get some shots of fall leaves. I have those to post later.

Busy Sunday morning in my backyard.

My story starts last Sunday with waking up to a chattering noise outside my window. I nudge my half-asleep husband "Do you hear that? I think our kingfisher is back." I hadn't seen him since early last spring. He hangs out in our channel every winter. I got up and looked out the window and there he was, sitting on our dock.



I ran and got my camera and open the blinds. He flew over to our neighbor's dock. I didn't notice the hawk sitting behind him until a few minutes later. After I took the above picture he took off down the channel. I thought I had scared him in the window but then noticed the below flying down the channel towards our house.

Our resident osprey was back with breakfast and landed on our neighbor's sailboat mast.

I went out the side door to try and get some outside pictures and the above red bellied woodpecker was sitting in our tree on the side of our house. He didn't stay long when he saw me.

I walked around to the backyard and noticed the immature blue heron that's been hanging around lately. He was on our neighbor's dock and looking at something strange.

That's when I noticed the red shouldered hawk had moved to the dock as well. He and the little blue heron were sitting on the same dock.

The hawk saw something in the grass and flew down to get it. I think it was a small lizard. He's got something hanging out of his mouth.

When the hawk flew back on the dock it scared the heron and off he went across the channel.

While heading back into the house the above blue jay was in our orange tree.

When I got back inside the hawk flew across our yard and landed on our neighbor's lanai. He watched a squirrel for a few minutes, then took off. I took the above from the dining room window.

All of the above happened before I had even had my Cheerios. Then all of a sudden everyone was gone. So we packed up and headed to Fort Desoto for the day. More on that later.

Little birds at Chesnut Park

Male cardinal keeping an eye on me.

 

Female cardinal posing.

I'm guessing the above is a yellow throated warbler. I looked it up but all of these tiny birds are starting to look alike.

Caroline Wren

Tufted titmouse.

Blue jay was about to eat a bug.

The recent trip to John Chesnut park in north Pinellas county provided some small migrating birds. There were tons of little birds there but it's so hard to catch them on camera. I got a lot more little bird pictures but they were a blurry mess. Those little guys don't sit long and pose like big water birds do. Plus I was getting a neck cramp after looking up high in the trees with my camera. My goal this trip was to find a few new small birds to capture. The warbler and wren were firsts for me. I've only gotten one picture of a titmouse from earlier this spring but this one was a little better. Migrating season is still going on so I'll keep trying.

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.

Crescent Lake Park

Opsrey having an early lunch.

Blackbird found an already dead baby duck in the grass. He eventually flew off with it.


Bluejay

The park has a very large old banyan tree that is starting to die. They fenced it off and have been mulching it and giving it some type of fertilizer to nurse it back to health. Hopefully, with the warm weather back it will get better.

Crescent Lake Park is a small park in St. Petersburg. It's surrounded by houses and apartments so there are always tons of people there walking dogs and jogging. There's a playground, tennis courts and dog park. The interesting thing is that a handful of geese have made a permanent home there. I guess someone forgot to tell them to go north for the summer. There are also a few osprey flying around since the lake is full of fish. They have the usual songbirds as well. It's a great place for a morning stroll and not to far from downtown St. Pete.