Foggy morning at Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary

One of the hundreds of northern gannets affected by the oil spill recouperating. The sanctuary released a handful of the few remaining this past week.

Great egret eating at the beach entrance to the sanctuary. Not sure if it caught the fish itself or stole it from the santuary.

Laughing gulls in the fog on the beach.

It was a quiet morning on the beach due to the fog and impending storm.

Flying in the fog. There's always some kid chasing after the poor birds, even in the fog.

Fog on the beach is kinda cool (unless you're a tourist trying to get a tan). Luckly for me (and the tourist), most weekends right now are nice. But recently, on my trip to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, it was foggy until late in the morning. There weren't too many people out walking on the strip of beach that the sanctuary sits on. The beach was full of gulls hiding out until the fog lifted. It's hard to get good pictures in the fog, everything looks gray in the background. But, still, even a foggy walk on the beach is pretty great.

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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.

Wild parrots at Crescent Lake

There's a group of wild monk parrots living around the water tower at Crescent Lake Park. They have several nests built into the steps of the water tower like the above picture. There's a baseball field next to the tower and the parrots were hanging out on the fence behind home plate. It was obviously mating season. They were pairing up and preening each other. They were very loud birds. I'm sure the neighbors around that park get tired of hearing that squawking all day. They are beautiful birds though, and very animated. I just stood by the ball park fence for a while and watched them fly back and forth. Every once in a while they would look over at me but did not pay too much attention to me.

Baby geese all grown up

The first picture was taken back in April at Crescent Lake Park in St. Petersburg. There were 11 baby geese at the park during that time. I think I only got 9 in the first picture. They never seemed to stay in one place to get a picture of all 11. I went back last weekend for a walk around the lake and realized the baby geese had all grown up. They were in the same spot and pretty much stayed together. They are used to being fed and would walk up to anyone that walked off the trail and stopped for a few minutes. They were in the lake when I first saw them and swam towards me. They seemed to say "Do you think she has any food?" There are other geese there as well so the park is going to seem overrun with them.

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.

Baby geese at Crescent Lake Park

This family was so cute that I had a hard time editing which pictures to post. I think the mom is a white chinese goose. There were nine babies when I saw them recently at Crescent Lake Park in St. Petersburg. There was a man feeding them who said they started with 10 babies. They stayed pretty close together and the parents were very aggressive at keeping people away. I took the above pictures with my 500mm lens. It's so much fun to be out taking pictures of all of the cute babies in the spring. Much more baby pictures to come.

Crescent Lake Park

It’s hot. It was so hot and steamy when I got up on Saturday morning. It looked like it might rain. I’m crazy when it comes to weather so I ventured out anyway. I had heard about a small flock of geese that live at Crescent Lake Park in St. Pete year round. When I got there around 9am there were tons of people everywhere. Everyone wanted to take advantage of the early morning sun before the afternoon rains hit. Lots of people walking dogs and kids were playing on the playground.

I found the geese at the south end of the lake. I only saw 2 couples. One goose looked very pregnant. These guys were very aggressive. I’m sure people feed them there. If you walk up to take a picture they come running up to you. If you don’t have food they attack your ankles. I saw this happen with a girl who had a point & shoot camera. Luckily I stayed far back with my 500mm lens. Not much else as far as nature there that morning except for the usual flocks of ibis and ducks.

I left the park and stopped by the St. Petersburg pier before heading home. Even the pier seemed quiet. Storms were brewing out in the bay. Not many people or birds there. A few pelicans were flying around. I was able to catch a few in flight before the rain started.