Kapok Park in December

"Can someone please clean up my home?" says the night heron.

Warbler

Loggerhead shrike posed in the tree.

I couldn't find this duck in my Florida Audubon app. It was a surface feeding duck. I've never seen this one before.

My first kildeer shot. There were 3 of them but they are very skittish and I couldn't get them all together.

Muscovy ducks don't get much attention. This guy was watching me for a while when I was taking pictures of the kildeer so I turned around and snapped a few of him.

A quick pre-New Year's walk around Kapok Park provided a few new birds for me. This was the first time I had seen a kildeer that close and I had never seen a loggerhead shrike at Kapok before. Still trying to figure out what type of duck that was. It was all alone feeding near a group of limpkins and ibis. There seems to be a lot of trash in the lake. The only way to clean it up would be to get a boat in there. I'm sure with cutbacks there's no one maintaining these small parks. 

Celery Field variety of birds - Skywatch Friday

I parked along side of the road at the celery fields in Sarasota and the above was circling overhead.  Having a "turkey" vulture circle around you is almost like celebrating Thanksgiving. I don't think turkey vultures get the credit they deserve for being "cool" birds. They look great when they are flying high up in the sky. They look creepy when there's a group of them hanging out on the side of the road.  I did have a good visit to the celery fields the week of Thanksgiving and I'm going to try and get back before Christmas.

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

This red shouldered hawk couple sat on the light fixture the entire time I was there.

Any id on this would be great. At first I thought it was a palm warbler which are common here but there's no hint of yellow.  Could it be a hermit thrush? That's the closest I could find on Whatbird.com.

Flock of anhingas flying by.

Grackle can't read.

The above is a yellowlegs. Not sure if it's a greater or lesser. They look alike.

I finally see a kildeer and didn't even know it. The sun was going down and I wanted to get a picture of the shorebirds sleeping. I didn't see the kildeer in the upper left corner until later when I uploaded the pictures. The picture is extremely cropped. I can't believe that little bird snuck into my picture and didn't let me know he was there. There was a small flock of shorebirds together and he must have been hiding in them.