Burrowing Owls at Brian Piccolo Park

I don't think I've seen anything so cute. These little owls stole my heart on a recent Saturday morning. I was in Ft. Lauderdale with hubby visiting relatives for a long weekend. We stayed at a different hotel than we usually do and it just happened to be down the street from Brian Piccolo Park. I had heard there were burrowing owls there and I've never seen them out in the wild. The park does not open until 8am so I didn't have to get there too early. I was the 2nd car in line to get in. It's not a nature park but a sports complex. I drove past soccer fields and baseball fields to the back and across from the skate park I saw the first nest.  They are pretty easy to find since they are marked with four stakes and yellow tape around each one. I was so excited to see owls sitting there. I took about a million pictures right away. After I finally took a deep breath and started looking around I realized there are tons of nest everywhere. They are just off of the parking lots in the dirt, all along the baseball fields and along the back of the park. They stayed pretty close to their roped off area.

Their facial expressions were amazing. I could have sat there all day and watched them. I stopped at a few different nest but eventually I had to head back to the hotel to get ready to spend the rest of the day with the relatives (all in-laws of course).  The two hours went by fast! I'll be stopping by there again next year. 

Audubon Center for Birds of Prey

This barred owl had so much personality. The trainer would talk to him and he would look at her with these amazing expressions.

Injured hawk was recouping outside.

Female american kestrel was a permanent resident.

A male kestrel.

This little screech owl is missing an eye.

Barn owls in their home at the center.

The eagle above has a twisted beak.

After my stop at Gatorland in Orlando, I decided to drive north to visit the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. It was just outside of downtown Orlando. I had read so many articles about injured eagles and other birds being taken there that I wanted to see the place. There's a handful of large enclosures for permanent residents. In the back you see the even larger flight rehab buildings but you cannot go in those buildings. They don't want the recuperating birds exposed to visiting humans which makes sense. The place sits on a small lake and you can walk on a boardwalk out over the lake to a small covered dock. It was nice sitting out there resting for a while. These guys stay busy helping injured birds. Stop by there if you are ever in Orlando. 

Audubon Center for Birds of Prey

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Save Our Seabirds in Sarasota

Across the parking lot from Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota is Save Our Seabirds Rehabilitation Center. They rescue, rehabilitate and release injured wild birds. They also house permanently injured birds. I had never been there before. The place is full of big cages for the birds to fly around in. It's mostly shaded so it didn't feel as hot as it really was walking around. The pictures above are of sandhill cranes that have lost a leg. The center has designed a prosthetic leg for them. Sandhill cranes are easy prey for getting hit by cars and losing a leg is one of the most common injuries from this. I don't know if any of these birds are released later. They seemed to be doing well walking around with the fake leg. The pictures were taken through tiny chicken wire so they are not good pictures but I thought the concept was pretty neat.

Below is a great horned owl that had lost an eye.  The center also had pelicans, shorebirds, raptors, etc. It's a great place to spend an hour or two. No admission fee but they desperately need donations.
Their website - http://saveourseabirds.com/.

Baby owl at Fort Desoto

Baby great horned owl.


Big baby yellow eyes!


Baby in the nest with Mom sitting above hiding behind the pine needles.

Mom sitting close by.

The above baby is probably one of the most photographed babies in the Tampa Bay area. The great horned owl baby is sitting on a tiny nest near the North Beach at Fort Desoto Park. Just look for the tree with all of the photographers standing underneath looking up. The baby was very animated and closely watching a handful of white ibis feeding on the ground underneath the nest. He's almost the size of the parent so he'll be flying soon. I don't know if I'll make it back down to the park again before he is gone.

Baby owl in Clearwater

Baby owl sitting up.

The baby's giving me that "What do you want?" look.

Parent sitting close by.

The owl blinking. It's funny to see their eyelids.

Now that the time has changed, I was able to get out after work and stop by one of my favorite parks close by work. I saw the big owl sitting high up in the tree from pretty far away. I walked by the old nest from last year and wasn't sure what I'd find. Yea, there was a baby owl sitting in it looking right at me. It's only a couple of weeks old. I'm going to try and get there every week to track it's progress growing up. They grow up fast and then leave for up north before the summer.

Spirit of Boyd HIll Nature Preserve

Picture I took of Spirit this past summer taken through the fence.

I recently came across this article on Tampabay.com about how the permanently injured eagle, Spirit, had died at Boyd Hill. She was 27 years old and had been a resident at Boyd Hill since 2001. When Spirit was young she was bitten by a rattlesnake which had done permanent damage to her wing making her flightless. She had a great big roomy cage at Boyd Hill and I was glad I got to see her while she was there. Below is the article about her life.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/resident-bald-eagle-at-boyd-hill-nature-preserve-in-st-petersburg-dies/1076462

Below are some of the other residents there.

My first owl sighting

Baby great horned owl peeking out from the nest.

Same baby owl about a month later sitting on a branch.

One of the parents of above baby owl.

Screech owl in Christina's backyard. (Picture taken by Christina Button).

I recently watched a great movie on the Disney channel called Hoot. It's about a boy who moves to south Florida and meets new friends and tries to save owls from losing their homes to development. It made me think of the first time I saw an owl out in the wild. It was this past spring at a small park not far from work. I was walking around taking pictures and someone stopped me and said "Have you seen the baby owl?". They showed me where it was and I was hooked. The parents were close by in another tree. I went back to that park every other week during the spring and got pictures of the baby growing up. My friend Christina was telling me she gets screech owls in her backyard. She sent me the above picture to show how cute they are. I'm going back to that park often this spring hoping to see a new baby.