Sunshine Skyway fishing pier - Skywatch Friday

Another trip to the Sunshine Skyway fishing pier. The weather is just too nice not to be outside. I was still surprised to see so few pelicans out flying around. I guess they just don't like this particular pier. There were a lot of other birds around though. The above egrets were sitting on top of the bait fish shop on the pier.

For more skyscape photography from around the world, visit http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

I think I was half way down the pier when I took this picture of the Sunshine Skyway bridge.

This great egret was trying to hide his catch.

At the end of the fishing pier, someone must have started feeding the gulls because they all started flying around and acting crazy.

I think this juvenile herring gull must have gotten this fish from a fisherman. Either he stole it or it was given to him.

Adult herring gull posing for me.

Babies at Gatorland

It all starts here. Two egrets getting frisky in the bushes.


Mom! Where'd you go?

Mom with her back to me with 3 babies.

A set of parents admiring their 2 babies.

Another mom feeding her 2 babies.

I had a Flickr meetup this past Saturday at Gatorland in Orlando. It was perfect timing as the great egrets were having babies. The bird rookery there was full of wild birds mating and laying eggs. There were several nests that already had babies on them. These babies will fledge and take off in around 6-7 weeks. It's funny how their beaks seem to grow first. It seem bigger than the rest of their body. There were tricolored herons there starting to mate so I'll have to go back in another month.

A walk around Sand Key

Laughing gull's gotta an itch. Most of the laughing gulls are getting black heads now which means breeding season will be starting soon for them.

This ring billed gull is taking a nap. I like the bright pink that outlines their eyes. I have read it is part of their breeding color.



Up close great egret. He was very pretty but looked too skinny.


Prancing around the fishing docks looking for a handout.

A recent walk around Sand Key Park was a little disappointing. It was very windy and a little cold. There were not too many birds around. I spoke to a fisherman on the fishing dock under the big bridge and he told me not too many fish were biting. It's going to take a while before they rebound from the big freeze in January. I guess most of the birds are still staying south looking for food. I did notice that the gulls are starting to show their breeding colors. A lot of the great egrets are showing their lime green around the beak. The one above was just starting to get his.

Friends and enemies - more from Gatorland

You would wonder why these birds would sit so close to these large beasts. They are really just waiting to try and get some of the food that is fed to the alligators.

This egret must have thought he was standing on a log instead of an alligator's tail.


I'm sure this great blue heron could have flown away if the alligators actually moved. Although that alligator behind him sure was smiling at him.

Occasionally a bird gets too close to a hungry alligator. I heard the splashes and looked over to see this alligator swimming around with his prize lunch.

There are two main things you see at Gatorland - lots of big alligators and big wild water birds. For the most of time they seem to co-habitat well together. The birds hang around the ponds at Gatorland to catch crumbs of the food being fed to the alligators and because there is lots of fish in the ponds for them to eat. The alligators keep away raccoons that would eat the bird eggs. I did happen to catch nature happening while I was there when an alligator must have been hungry and a bird got lazy and too close. It's a sad circle of life.

Great egrets nesting

Doing a mating dance.

Sitting on the nest. There aren't any babies yet but they will be coming soon.

These two egrets were courting each other for a while.

Egrets were busy getting sticks for their nests.

Saturday morning I went to Gatorland. Not to see the alligators, although there will be pictures of those coming. Bird nesting season has started there. They have a bird rookery there that is amazing during this time through spring. The mangroves along the boardwalk were full of great egrets (who apparently are the first type of these birds to nest). Last year I went in early May and the place was full of tricolor herons and blue herons with babies. During mating season great egrets get bright green color around their beaks that you don't see in the summer and fall. They do these strange mating dances that are fun to watch. The rookery was buzzing with egrets gathering sticks, flying around getting food and fixing their nests. They nest there because they seem to know that the alligators in the lake below will keep the raccoons from getting their eggs. I plan to go back in late March to see if any babies have hatched.

Global Cooling at Lakes Park

Free time to experience SW Florida's wildlife has been extremely limited these past weeks.

The Great Egret with Snowy Egret above was photographed at Lakes Park in January 2010.

On the first occasion for observation and photography this year where there wasn't an overcast sky, the temperature was near freezing at dawn. For that reason I made the very easy decision to simply stay warm indoors.

Earlier this week, I had heard two reports that there were significant fish deaths in lakes and ponds across the state of Florida. One of the reports specifically mentioned Lakes Park which I was compelled to visit to see the bird activity the fish might have attracted.

The Snowy Egret above was photographed at Lakes Park in January 2010.

Although I was not able to arrive at Lakes Park until near sundown on Tuesday, I still brought the camera with hopes to document something interesting. The bird activity was more prevalent than in any of my handful of other visits to the park in the past couple of years.

It was my greatest hope to see the Scarlet Ibis which has been observed at the park on occasion. Images available of it can certainly never do it justice for its beauty.

The Snowy Egret with Tricolored Heron above was photographed at Lakes Park in January 2010.

Although I saw many hundreds of birds in very close proximity including ibis, heron, egret, stork, the Scarlet Ibis was again elusive.

The timing of my visit to Lakes Park was a mere day and a half after I had heard of the fish kill, but the evidence of the event was non existent as might be explained by the great abundance of birds at the park. The cleanup effort was complete.

The Wood Stork above was photographed at Lakes Park in January 2010.

I took photographs of the birds I did see, primarily attempting to capture them in flight, and unfortunately had little success as the lighting was quite poor and I was shooting at a relatively high ISO setting to keep the shutter speed up.

It was a tremendous amount of fun in the experience nonetheless.

Another report heard this past week was that the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico had reached the high of that in the Atlantic Ocean. Does that mean a disappearance of the Gulf Stream if not just temporarily?