Kayaking in the backyard

Royal tern preening and a caspian tern watching.

There's always laughing gulls around. 

I thought all of the wintering kingfishers were gone but this guy was hanging out in the mangroves. He was far away and wouldn't let me close in my kayak.

Two spoonbills fly overhead. All I saw was a flash of pink high in the sky.

There were lots of willets and marbled godwits on people's docks.

The usual osprey.

I finally got around to a kayaking trip in the channels in our neighborhood in mid April.  I always go out not expecting to see much but I am usually pleasantly surprised. As I was paddling out into the open bay in upper Tampa Bay, several dolphins went whizzing by me. I didn't get the chance to get my camera out. They went by and were gone so fast. There's always a lot of shorebirds, gulls and terns hanging around the docks of the houses that sit out on the open bay. A few docks have fake owls to keep the birds off but I think the birds know they are fake. I've seen osprey sitting on top of the fake owl before.

All of the above were taken with my old Fuji point and shoot camera. I haven't tried to take my new Nikon D7000 on the kayak. It's so much to pack and stick in my small kayak. I'd rather travel light when I'm paddling.

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A weekend with a kingfisher

These were taken a couple of weekends ago.  It's the last time I've seen the kingfisher in our neighborhood. I hope she hasn't gone home yet. I need to tell her it's still snowing up north so she might as well stay a little longer.  I finally got a picture of her with a fish. She caught it and then kept banging it on the wall to kill it before she swallowed it.  She took it down the channel so I didn't get to see her swallow it but she came back a couple of hours later and hung around for a while. I don't see how that fish could fit in her little body.

The osprey was trying to eat his fish on our neighbor's dock while the kingfisher was banging on hers.

Kingfisher pays another visit

More pictures of my neighborhood female belted kingfisher. She's so cute, I can't stop taking pictures of her.  It had started to rain a couple of weekends ago and the last 2 pictures of her are in the rain sitting on my dock. All taken through the bedroom window. I'm not sure when she'll head back up north for the summer, maybe March?  I'm going to miss her visits.

The usual backyard visitors - My World Tuesday

The above juvenile red shouldered hawk has been hanging around our backyard for a couple of weeks now. He found a piece of fish that the osprey left on the dock.

Sitting in our neighbor's back yard.

The resident female kingfisher was sitting on a pole sticking out of the water near our seawall.

The resident blue heron that I don't see that often showed up for a couple of hours.

She started coughing up a piece of fish she had eaten earlier. Yuk!

After the rain stopped, the hawk was drying his wings on our neighbor's sailboat mast.

I didn't see her catch the fish but she showed up a couple of docks down with a fish in her mouth.

I woke up a couple of weekends ago to a rainy day. It rained on and off all day so I stayed in and did chores. We got a lot of the usual visitors during the day to our backyard. I kept peeking out the back sliding glass doors every half hour and was able to take the above pictures over the course of the day.

Go and check out more MyWorld images at the MyWorld Site! http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

Many faces of the neighborhood kingfisher.

This little bird of prey is so tiny. Not as tiny as a blue-gray gnatcatcher but much smaller than the hawk or osprey that hangs out in our channel. It's a she. The female kingfisher has the rust color around the chest. It would be nice to see a male in the neighborhood but so far I've only seen a female. She tends to hang out on our dock or our neighbor's dock. Occasionally, on the weekends I can hear her chattering and I peak out the window to see her sitting there. She must be a migratory bird since I only see her in the winter. Kingfishers are very skittish birds and don't hang around when people are present. Any of the pictures I have taken in our channel have been through a window. The second I walk outside she is gone. Other birds will hang around for a while watching me take their picture. All of the above were taken on Thanksgiving weekend. The picture below was taken last winter. I wonder if it's the same bird. The rust on the bottom is not all the way across but she might have grown that in this past summer.

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.

Belted Kingfisher

I found this beautiful belted kingfisher on one of the boardwalks at John Chesnut Park in Pinellas County.  The portrait was taken from very far away and was extremely cropped. I've found that they are very skittish and will not stick around while you try and get decent pictures. Later that morning while I was walking to the other end of the boardwalk, I heard it chattering as it flew by and then stopped right in front of me and started to dive for a fish. I always feel like I don't have such luck. I missed him hitting the water since it was hidden by mangroves where I was standing but a few seconds later I saw him take off so I'm assuming he got his meal.

Roosevelt Wetlands

Beautiful glossy ibis. We don't see these very often in Pinellas county. This one looks like it's in full breeding colors.

Blue winged teal duck. We don't see these very often as well. I love the spots on his wing and the bold white stripe on his face.


Red winged blackbird making a lot of noise.

A belted kingfisher from very far away. These birds are very skittish. This picture was extremely cropped. This was the first time I had seen a kingfisher at this park.

The usual alligator.

The usual alligator snack food. Rabbits are showing up everywhere.

I made a quick stop at Roosevelt Wetlands after work one day last week. I needed to get out and walk around after sitting at my desk all day. This place is really a preserve instead of a park. There are no restrooms, playgrounds or real parking. There are houses sitting around half of the lake. You can usually find some different birds there. There were a lot of ducks hanging around the lake. I got my first decent picture of a blue winged teal above. There were several of them there and they stayed close together out in the middle of the lake. I plan to make a lot of stops at the wetlands now that it's still light after work and it's close by.