Lake Morton - City wildlife

The baby goose that is being raised by the black swan mom is growing up.

Baby goose standing in the middle of her adoptive parents.

She's looking at me like "Where's the bread?"

I found this great blue heron fluffing up from the wind.

Cute turtle staring at me from a rock.

I stopped by Lake Morton in downtown Lakeland on my way home from a recent trip to Gatorland to see how much the baby goose had grown up. Somehow, a  pair of black swans took over parenting a baby goose at the lake. The swans were still staying close to the baby even though now it was almost as big as the swans. They followed each other around the lake. They were a strange family.  It looked like most of the white pelicans and migrating ducks were gone from the lake. Only the resident geese, swans and ibis were present. I still didn't see any baby swans but several swans were sitting on nests.

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A few non-bird animals at Circle B Bar Reserve

Always lots of alligators around.

My first wild pig sighting. Thrilling, huh?

There's always tons of cute turtles along the trail.

Fish were coming through the pipes between the ponds and flopping around the rocks until they made it into the pond.

There's always something interesting to find at Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland. Sometimes you forget to look around for other things besides birds. I never thought to notice the fish but I was standing right above the pipes that run the water through the different ponds and saw something shiny flopping around in the water. I'm surprised there weren't any birds around at the time. Seems like the fish would have been any easy meal. Maybe all the birds were full from breakfast there and were napping (it was getting close to lunch).  I've always heard about the wild pigs running around and hadn't seen any until my recent trip. A big mom was across the creek at the beginning of Alligator Alley so I couldn't see her too well. I saw one piglet hiding in the bushes but it never came out.

Florida Botanical Gardens and a new park

One robin says to the other "Man, this Florida living is nice. I'm never going back up north."

Red bellied woodpecker says "No, this is not a berry in my mouth."

Mallard says to moorhen "Stop chasing me." Moorhen says to mallard "Then why are you running? You're much bigger than me."

Yellow rumped warbler says "I'm all alone."

The big yellow flower says "Spring is already in Florida."

The first turtle says "Last one out gets eaten by an alligator."

Spring flower says "No snow down here."

It was a couple of weekends ago that is was freezing (by Florida standards). It was the last cold weekend we had for the season. I got to the Florida Botanical Gardens around 9am and my car said it was 42 degrees outside. I thought "This is crazy. I should have stayed home in bed." But the sun was out and it warmed up pretty quick to about 60 degrees. There weren't a lot of flowers out but I did find a few that were blooming. A big flock of American robins flew by and a couple landed on a tree right in front of me.

Before I headed home, I decided to try out a new park close by the botanical gardens.  George C. McGough Nature Park in Largo is a small nature park. I had recently read that the resident owl who has lived at the center since being orphaned as a baby was missing. Someone broke into the center after closing and cut open his cage. The owl never learned to hunt for himself.  My thought is the people who did this thought they were doing the owl a favor but the owl will probably starve to death. Which is right? Set him free to starve or stay locked in a cage for life? The owl visited schools for learning programs and to teach kids about conversation and wildlife. At this point the owl has not been found.  The park sits on the intercoastal waterway and has a nice boardwalk that goes out over the water. The day I was there it was so windy. I didn't see any birds at all on the whole walk. Only some turtles and flowers. I'll have to give the park another try soon.

Below is an attempt to record a cardinal singing.

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Turtles and a wood duck

Getting a ride.

Lonely male wood duck.

 

Wood duck in the water.

Osprey nest at the football field.

On a recent Sunday afternoon I stopped by Kapok Park to see if I could find the great horned owls that have nested there for the last 3 years. No luck again. It's getting late in the season. I wonder what happened to the couple. There wasn't too much at the park at all. Lots of turtles. I did manage to find a lonely male wood duck. I've never seen one there before. He was hanging out with some mallards and moorhens.

On the way home, right before dark, I stopped at the community sports park near my house. There are baseball and football fields there.  You can see the nest platform that was put in the lights in the first osprey picture. There are several of those platforms in the ball park. This way the osprey don't build nests in the lights which I guess could be bad for lights. I'll stop by in the next couple of weeks to see if there are any baby osprey.

Lots of animals at Carillon Park.

Lots of turtles in the lake at Carillon Park.  Now that it hasn't rained in a while the water is really low. There were turtles all along the edge of the lake.

Limpkin giving me the eye.

Green heron walking along the railing.

Cute bunny on the sidewalk eating some grass.

Blue jay in the tree before sunset.

This looks precarious but there are metal bars along certain parts of  the lake. This was taken just before sunset.

Opsrey sitting on a palm tree with a sliver of the moon behind him.

One last trip to Carillon Park before the time change and it's dark after work. It's a small lake surrounded by office buildings. There's an amazing amount of wildlife there considering it has office buildings and a hotel all along the lake. Since the weather had cooled off a bit there were tons of joggers out on the boardwalk. I didn't see any small migrant birds, only water birds. I might have to try and get over there for a quick walk during lunch when the weather gets really cold (under 70 degrees).

Marine animals at Mote Marine Laboratory

Mote has 2 resident dolphins. Harley above and Moonshine below. They were injured and stranded as babies and after rehabilitation they were not able to be released back in wild. Moonshine's back is covered in old sunburn scares. They do not do tricks and there is no show. You can, however, see them playing on their own.

The turtles above and below are both permanent residents at Mote as well. The above turtle, Edger, was born with a pigmentation problem which would have caused him to sunburn in the wild. He was found stranded as a baby.

There are 2 permanently injured manatees at Mote and they love to come up to the window and look at you.

You can get really close to some cool sharks. Below is a picture of one of the sharks being fed in their learning program.

I had not been to Mote in Sarasota in years. I decided to head down on a recent day off during the week hoping it would not be crowded.  It's not a big place but they have some really neat things there. They have a room full of fish aquariums, a great big octopus and cool shark tank that you can see in and look down on. My favorite place is across the street at the dolphin and whale hospital that is a part of Mote. They have dolphins, turtles and manatees that you can see up close.  The people at Mote work hard to rescue, rehab and release animals from all over Florida. The place is a great way to spend a couple of hours and learn all about these sea animals.

Fun Animals at Chesnut Park

Loud mouth red shouldered hawk.

Butterflies were everywhere in the park.

Yes, this is the back end of a deer. See below for story.

Small alligator close to the boardwalk.



The above turtle was laying in the middle of the road that runs through the park. I took a quick picture then picked him up and moved him over in the grass.

Last Saturday was beautiful. It felt cooler in the morning so I headed out to John Chesnut Park in north Pinellas county. I had only been there once before and didn't see too much on that first visit. I really wanted to see deer. Several people have told me they had seen deer there. After 2 hours of walking through the park I stopped by the boardwalk that runs along the boat launch. A nice lady stopped me and said "There's 2 deer in the swamp here below the boardwalk." As I walked over and saw the deer a guy with a big dog walked over as well. The dog started barking very loud just as I started to take the picture. All I got was the back end of the deer. The thing that makes me really mad is there is a big sign at the entrance to that boardwalk that says "no dogs allowed".  Why do people have no respect? I guess another trip to this park is in my near future.

Carillon boardwalk in north St. Petersburg.

Juvenile northern mockingbird. There were lots of mockingbirds there.

The usual alligator. He was swimming by the birds below.


Three juvenile night herons. The alligator was swimming close by. I think that's why they were standing at attention.

Lots of butterflies around.

Lots of turtles as well.

I found a new park close by work. It's actually not new, I just had not taken the time to stop there. I didn't think there would be much to see. It's a medium size lake with a boardwalk around most of it and surrounded on most sides by office buildings. There's a small section that has a trail and is covered by trees and mangroves. I left work later than usual one day recently and just decided to stop by and walk around. There was a handful of after work joggers running around. It had the usual water birds, alligators and turtles. I'll definitely stop there again since it's so close to work.

Kapok Park - turtles and birds.

Turtle basking in the sun.



Small turtle swimming in the lake.


White ibis up close.

Mockingbird hiding in a tree.

Limpkin up close.

Limpkin posing on one of the park signs.

There are lots of animals at Kapok Park right now. I went there before the weekend to see how the baby owl was doing. There was no sign of it. I didn't think it was old enough to start flying yet. I spent an hour looking for him and the parents. They were all a no-show. Maybe they all went out for dinner that night. I'm going to check back in before this weekend to see if they came back. Hopefully they haven't left yet for the summer.