Merry Christmas from Atlanta

I'm spending Christmas weekend in Atlanta with the in-laws. I managed to sneak out for a few hours on Christmas eve to walk around the neighborhood and found a few birds hanging around in the cold. Lots of cardinals up here. I also saw my first cedar waxwing, but more on that after the holidays.

I want to thank everyone who stopped by this past year and hope you stop by again in the next year. I've got more pictures to come. Have a great Christmas!

Visit to Circle B Bar Reserve - Skywatch Friday

Great blue heron with a small snake. He eventually gulped it down.

Black bellied whistling ducks flying by.

One of the resident glossy ibis.

Another blue-gray gnatcatcher. These guys are everywhere this fall.

Cattle egret on the trail. He seems lost. He should be hanging out in the cow pastures that are close by.

Not sure what this little bird is.  It looks like it's got some yellow under the tail.

The infamous "Bubba" that lives at Circle B.

The first Saturday in December turned out to be nice and warm, high of 70 degrees by 10am. I started out with a sweatshirt on but soon had just the tshirt on. I hadn't been in a while. The white pelicans hadn't arrived yet so that was a disappointment. I've heard they are there now so I'll have to head back there in the next week or so. Last December it was amazing to see the large flocks of white pelicans flying back and forth between the marsh ponds and the big lake.

I spent most of the morning walking the trails with Klaus (http://virtua-gallery.com/wp/) who has this amazing ability to see every tiny animal that is hiding. He spotted the otters but we weren't able to get a good picture from where they were hiding. We did not find the bittern he was looking for but he showed me where it had been before so I'll keep my eye out for it on the next trip.

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

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.

Birding on thin ice

I stopped by the local state park (East Fork) to do a little birding this afternoon. The roads in the park were not all treated from the last snow storm we had, so I had to park on top of the hill and walk down to the beach (plus the gate was closed). In a way, this was a good thing, as it kept the dog walkers from being on the beach. The downside was I didn't feel like lugging my scope back up the hill so I didn't take it.

It was quiet and seemed as though there wasn't much around at first glance. Since I walked down the hill, I decided to spend some time here just to see what I could see. The first birds that I spotted was a group of Mallards with some Gadwall in with them. Also spotted some Horned & Pied-billed Grebes, a couple of Common Loons, Black Ducks, and Canada Geese.

As I walked up and over a little rise to see a cove to the west of the beach, I noticed something moving on the shore. Ah, an American Coot.

American Coot

As I continued to walk to the water's edge, the coot decided to walk right up to me. It came to within about 3 ft. of me! I continued to scan the shoreline. I could see a bird that looked like a shorebird on the other side of the cove. Looked like a Wilson's Snipe to me (not easy to find here this time of year). I tried to get a better look, but didn't realize that I was standing on ice!

Wilson's Snipe

The bird appeared to be resting, but that was short lived, as the ice I was standing on gave way and I fell into a small ditch (luckily it was only about a foot deep). All that commotion startled the snipe, and it flew away or at least I thought it did.

I continued walking the shoreline when I saw something pop up from behind a rock in front of me. It was the snipe. It was hiding behind a rock! After my mishap, I couldn't blame it.

Wilson's Snipe hiding behind a rock

Oh, and the coot? It thought the whole debacle was hilarious!!! No kidding, I took this photo not ten seconds after I fell through the ice.

American Coot laughing at my mishap!

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Hanging out with a great egret - My World Tuesday

These pictures of the great egret were taken in early November. Back when it was warm (meaning over 70 degrees). I was at Fort Desoto and came across this egret that kept hopping and flying around the north beach marsh. He kept me entertained for quite a while. You can almost always find egrets hanging around the marsh but I don't know if it's always the same ones. Do they live in one place or move around from park to beach a lot? If any of you up north are already tired of the snow then come down to Florida for a visit. It's cold here but not as cold as it is up there!

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

Hooded merganser couple

The male hooded merganser was swimming in the channel behind our house over Thanksgiving weekend. I didn't see the female that weekend. Well, this past weekend they were both there. It was right before the sun went down and they came fairly close to our dock. The female is the one without the white circle on her head. She does have a nice mohawk though. The last picture is the only time they were close together and it was almost dark. Last year they only stayed for a couple of weeks. I wish I knew where they moved on to. I guess they felt like our channel was too populated since there are houses all along the channels. 

Flying things at Epcot

There is lots of wildlife at Epcot if you just look for it. There are tiny sparrows everywhere (especially around the food areas).  The big lake that the countries sit around has lots of ducks. I saw mostly mallards there. The lake also had ibis and cormorants all around. We saw several people feeding the ducks. I found the ducklings in a small pond at the Canada exhibit. They were so cute and had a huge crowd watching them. That alone was worth the price of admission to a Disney Park, right?