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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Birds at Chesnut Park (& a woodpecker video too)

Male anhinga sitting in his usual spot on the lake.

Tufted titmouse looking down at me. I see a lot of these at Chesnut Park.

My first black and white warbler.

The woods seem to be full of pileated woodpeckers.

I was standing on the boardwalk taking pictures of the above pileated woodpecker when I had a thought "I should take a video of him banging away." The nice thing about my new camera (Nikon D7000) is that it's really easy to flip the switch and record. I hadn't really spent any time doing that yet. After I took the video and got home I realized I was holding the camera portrait to get a long shot of the woodpecker and in the video the woodpecker is not set up right. I can't figure out a way to rotate a video. I'm assuming there's not one unless I had some high tech video editing program. Hopefully, next time I'll get it right. If you have the sound, on the howling you hear at the very beginning is another woodpecker calling to the one in the video. They get really loud in the woods.

Windy day at Honeymoon Island

Is this a caspian tern or common tern?  They both look alike. Anyway, it's fairly rare to see one here. Too many laughing gulls around.

Black vulture posing on snag.

This looks like a pine warbler. It was the closest thing in my Audubon guide.

Woodpecker hanging upside down.

 

I think this is a juvenile ring-billed gull (adult below). There were a handful of ring billed gulls hanging around on the beach. This one was eating the insides of the conch.

Adult ring billed gull. I like the way their feet matches their beak.

Kiteboarder at Honeymoon Island.  Looking down to Clearwater beach.

Two weekends ago it was very windy. I decided to hit the nature trail at Honeymoon Island to see what was going on with the eagles there. I had heard they had 2 baby chicks but they were still too small to show their heads. It didn't feel windy on the inside wooded trail but I decided to head north along the mangrove trail to the north end beach. The wind was blasting. There were only a few gulls hanging around, no other shorebirds.  There wasn't a large variety of birds on the trail. I think the weather had blown them away. There are tons of osprey, more on those later. I decided to hit the beach before I headed home but when I got there it was just too windy (and I was hungry) so I didn't stay long. The rocky beach section was full of live conchs. The gulls were feeding off of them and a few shell seekers were looking around.  A few kiteboarders were out and they were moving fast across the water.

When I got home my husband said "Weren't you cold?" I said "No, wimp."

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. 

Circle B Bar Reserve in December - Part 1

White pelicans flying by a few trees full of storks. Yes, we have winter in central Florida. Everything was brown and red. All of the pretty yellow flowers are gone.

Glossy ibis in flight.

Black bellied whistling ducks sleeping. They look so peaceful on the side of the trail.

Black bellied whistling duck preening with that bright pink beak.

Why did the warbler cross the road? To get the bug in the middle of it.

Glossy ibis preening.

The Tuesday before Christmas I decided to head to Circle B in Lakeland before we drove to Atlanta on Wednesday. It did not start out good. I got about 10 minutes away from the reserve and got a flat tire on Polk Parkway. Thank goodness for AAA. I've had it forever and that's the first time I've had to use it for a flat tire (and hopefully the last). He was there in under half an hour at 8am in the morning and it took him about 20 minutes to change it. All was not lost. I still headed to the reserve since I was almost already there. It was a quiet morning there. All of the birds seemed to be resting or preening. Since I knew I needed to head back to Tampa to get the tire replaced before the Atlanta trip I only stayed for two hours. I did manage to get a lot of pictures in that short time. More on Circle B to come.

Nasty weather at Lettuce Lake

I think both the above and below pictures are an eastern phoebe. I've seen them there before.

Warbler?

 

Red bellied woodpecker. You can see it was not a nice day.

Female cardinal.

 

This looks like a downy woodpecker or is it a female yellow bellied sapsucker? They look almost alike.

The weekend before Christmas was really yucky. It rained all day on Saturday. It drizzled Sunday morning. It stopped by lunchtime but still looked like the end could come at anytime. I had cabin fever so I headed out to Lettuce Lake. It's not too far and there's a boardwalk along the lake so it wouldn't be too muddy. It felt cold in the wind without the sun out. Most of the bigger water birds were on the other side of the lake but there were a few smaller birds along the boardwalk. It was worth bundling up and getting out of the house.

Chesnut Park November visit.

Two anhingas were fighting over something. I took this picture into the sun. They eventually took off following each other.

The usual blue-gray gnatcatcher. One of the tinies birds around.

I have no idea what this is. Looks like a type of warbler but the yellow on the sides is throwing me off. I couldn't find anything with yellow there.

I think this is a yellow palm warbler in non-breeding colors. Seen testing out the crumbs on the road.

No post about a Florida park would be complete without an alligator in it. There are tons at Chesnut Park. This one seemed to look up and smile at me. And yes, I took this with my zoom lens.

First fall trip to Circle B Bar Reserve

I'm thinking this is a palm warbler. 

I'm thinking this is a pine warbler but I could be way off. There's a ton of little birds that look like this. Any ID would be great.  It was so tiny and flew by quickly. This is extremely cropped.

Black bellied whistling ducks. It's great to hear them go whistling by.

Pied grebe above. Recently I've been seeing them everywhere. They duck under water so quick.

Snowy egret taking off.

I hadn't been out to Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland since May. It's just been too hot to hike around an inland park. In the beginning of October we had a cold snap (meaning 80 degrees) and I had to go. I got there around 9am, which is late for birders but I really needed to sleep in. It was already hot. There weren't a lot of birds there but I did manage to catch a few tiny ones. I think I was just a little early for the big birding season there. Any id's on the first 2 little birds would be great. I looked them up but they all look alike. I'm planning on many visits there between now and spring.

Little birds at Chesnut Park

Male cardinal keeping an eye on me.

 

Female cardinal posing.

I'm guessing the above is a yellow throated warbler. I looked it up but all of these tiny birds are starting to look alike.

Caroline Wren

Tufted titmouse.

Blue jay was about to eat a bug.

The recent trip to John Chesnut park in north Pinellas county provided some small migrating birds. There were tons of little birds there but it's so hard to catch them on camera. I got a lot more little bird pictures but they were a blurry mess. Those little guys don't sit long and pose like big water birds do. Plus I was getting a neck cramp after looking up high in the trees with my camera. My goal this trip was to find a few new small birds to capture. The warbler and wren were firsts for me. I've only gotten one picture of a titmouse from earlier this spring but this one was a little better. Migrating season is still going on so I'll keep trying.