Drive home from work - Skywatch Friday

I have to drive across a bridge to get home from work. Or rather I sit on the bridge and crawl in traffic. I have my choice of bridges since I both work and live in between the two. I can take Howard Franklin/275 bridge into Tampa or the Courtney Campbell/Highway 60 bridge. If I take the Courtney Campbell bridge, I also have to take the Bayside Bridge. I usually try and check at least two traffic sites on the web before I leave to see if either bridge has a wreck on or near it. Then I take the other bridge. If I'm sitting on the 275 bridge which is always slower, I keep an eye for dolphins swimming by. If I take the other bridge, I can stop on the access road and take pictures. Last week I had my camera in the car and took the Courtney Campbell bridge home. I stopped off right before dark and got the above pictures. There weren't a lot of birds around since the day was so nice. Too many people had been hanging around the causeway all afternoon. The drive home is always nice when traffic is not bad. So is the view from the rear view mirror.

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Baby eagle getting fed - Skywatch Friday

  

Eagle parent in the nest.

Juvenile eagle flying overhead. I don't know where he came from. He started flying around in circles over the nest and then took off.

Parent chasing off the juvenile eagle intruder.

Parent sitting on a snag close by the nest.

Parent sitting on the nest with the baby thinking "Where's that bird with the fish?"

Feeding the baby.

There are 2 babies on the nest but I could only see the one on the left.

Baby says "Yuck Dad, this taste like chicken." Dad probably said "That's cause it is chicken."

I left work early on the Friday before President's day. Since I had about 2 hours before dark I decided to check on the eagle's nest in the cemetery in St. Petersburg. When I got there I could see one little baby eagle head sticking up and looking around. There are two babies in the nest but I could really only see one baby. The other was sitting lower in the nest and a couple of times I could see the top of it's fuzzy head. One of the parents flew in right before dark with a fish and I was able to get a couple of pictures with the parent feeding the baby. These pictures were highly cropped. I think the babies were about 2-3 weeks old when I took these pictures. They are about 6-7 weeks old now. They are usually gone from the nest for good around 20 weeks so I'm going to try and check back every couple of weeks to see them grow up. 

It started getting dark and I had to meet the hubby for dinner so I left the eagle family and headed back to Tampa. The moon was hanging over the bay so I stopped on the access road on the causeway and snapped the below. It was a beautiful night out.

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American Oystercatchers and an eagle - Skywatch Friday

American oystercatcher on an oyster bed. I took this from the car. These birds are very skittish. If I had stopped the car and got out he would have been gone in seconds after I opened the door.

He's like "Hey dude, turn around, she wants to take our picture."

Bald eagle sitting on the causeway light post.

I was crossing the Courtney Campbell Causeway from Tampa into Clearwater on a recent Sunday afternoon and just happened to have my camera in the car. I'm usually on the lookout for osprey on the light posts. There are always a handful across the causeway. I did a double take when I saw the above sitting on the post with cars flying by underneath. When I got to the end of the causeway I turned around and came back on the access road. I was able to snap a couple of pictures before the eagle flew off. Then I noticed the large flock of oystercatchers sitting on the side of the access road and had to take a few pictures of them. I wonder how many other people driving by noticed that was an eagle sitting there. I'm thinking it must be one of the Safety Harbor eagles. I see them at Philippe Park but haven't found their nest yet.

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Where the shorebirds sleep - Skywatch Friday.

Shorebirds going to sleep on the causeway. The little orange legged ones are ruddy turnstones. I think the others are dunlins.

Willet trying to sleep while keeping an eye on me.

Willets and sanderlings mixed in.

Sun not quite down on the Bayside bridge.

I took this on the Courtney Campbell Causeway.

After dark, you can always find ruddy turnstones on the rocks.

The sun seems to be staying up a little bit longer now. One night last week a left work a few minutes earlier than usual and was able to stop for a half an hour along the causeway and take a few pictures. You can always find shorebirds sleeping along the Courtney Campbell causeway. The causeway is state road 60 that crosses old Tampa Bay between Clearwater and Tampa. The causeway was named for Courtney W. Campbell, U.S. Representative and member of the Florida Road Board who spearheaded efforts to ensure needed repairs and beautification of the Causeway was completed. It is listed under the Great Florida Birding Trail under SR 60. Some nights I take this road home and some nights I take the Howard Franklin bridge (Interstate 275) across the bay. I check traffic on the web to determine my route before heading home. Both routes have pelicans, osprey, gulls, shorebirds, herons, egrets and dolphins but on the causeway you can pull off onto the the access road and enjoy the view.

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Drive home from work - Skywatch Friday

The Thursday before New Year's I left work a little early and decided to stop along the Courtney Campbell Causeway before heading home to see if there were any birds hanging around. I had not been in a while because now it's dark when I leave work. Clouds had rolled in and it was just starting to get dark. There weren't too many birds around. I saw 2 groups of ducks floating out in the bay. They looked like lesser scaup. They were disappearing ducks. One minute there would be 4 or 5 ducks floating around and then there would only be 1. Lesser scaup are diving ducks which dive for their food. They kept doing it all at the same time. They are very skittish and would not get too close to the causeway. As I was leaving the access road on the causeway, I saw the above osprey sitting on a lamp post. At first he was turned facing the main road but when I stopped he turned around and looked down at me. He almost looks comical.

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Birds on the causeway - Skywatch Friday

Another stop on the Courtney Campbell causeway during my drive home from work two weeks ago. I'm really going to miss these now that the time has changed and it's a dark trip home.  The above was a flock of skimmers that took off when a jogger went running by. At first I was mad at the jogger for disturbing the birds but it did make for a nicer picture.

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Cute little plover watching me.

A small group of marbled godwits trying to sleep. I think I was keeping them up even though I wasn't too close.

Finally, the sun went down and the moon came out. I took this on the causeway with my 300mm lens handheld.

Dowitchers walking along the shore after sunset.

Sanderling running for cover after dark. I used my flash on this one.

You can usually find at least one night heron on the causeway. This was an immature.

Sunset on the causeway - Skywatch Friday

It hasn't rained in weeks.  Which makes for a beautiful sunset every night but the grass and trees are started to get crispy. I took the above driving home from work recently. In another 2 weeks the time changes and I'll be driving home in the dark so I'm trying to stop and get pictures at least once a week.

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This blue heron was digging up some seaweed. There must have been something good in it.

There was a handful of shorebirds on the causeway.

Something in the water startled this great blue heron. Might have been a stingray.

There's always lots of skimmers flying around the causeway before dark.

Storms around the causeway - My World Tuesday

Storms were moving into the Tampa area a few weeks ago.

I took this on my way home from work from a parking deck on Rocky Point island.

Typical of Florida, it was raining across the bay but not where I was.

Skimmers were hanging out in the parking lot on Rocky Point island.

Looks like these laughing gulls were settling in for the night.

Just a few weeks ago we were getting storms every day late in the afternoon. Even in late September.  I had my camera in the car and was ready to go to a park after work but the storms looked bad. On my way home though, it looked like it might clear up. I stopped on the Courtney Campbell causeway and shot a few pictures before the sun went down. This was the last big storm since then.

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Skywatch Friday - Kayaking North Tampa Bay

I looked out the window last weekend and saw beautiful blue skies. Hubby wanted to watch sports on tv so I opted for a paddle around the channels in our neighborhood. I've never seen spoonbills in the mangroves near our channel so I was surprised to find the above sitting in the bushes when I paddled by.

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Great egret also sitting in the mangrove bushes.

I paddled along the mangroves across from the Courtney Campbell Causeway and the water got very shallow. Low tide moved in on me fast. The 4 spoonbills were standing in the water feeding and stopped to pose for me when I paddled by.

There was a variety of different birds hanging out at this shallow spot.



I'm thinking the one in the middle is a yellowlegs. Not sure if it's a lesser or greater. I don't see these very often. The ones on the ends are both willets. You can see how shallow the water was.


At one point I got out of my kayak and was dragging it behind me because the water was so shallow in some places. I was a little nervous because there were stingrays everywhere. I was careful and did the stingray shuffle. Even though you could see the bottom, those guys could be half hidden under the sand.

There were tons of the above crown conchs everywhere.

Coming back into the main channel, the above spoonbills were walking around. It was a very productive spoony day!