I didn’t think they were there at first. I expected to see a whole flock of them sitting prettily on the mulberry branches. But movement in the trees caught my eye eventually, and yes, they were there, but flitting from place to place. It was a perfect day, 75 degrees, so standing in the sun wasn’t an issue, but the wind whipping those branches around certainly was an issue. I wish these pictures were better, but I’m glad to have had a chance to see them at all.
Tucked away but sitting still for a minute.Then I found this one.Snack time.I almost edited out a red spot on one of my images, but now I see that it’s supposed to be there.This tricolor looked like the king of the castle with so much hunting territory to himself.Red-winged blackbirds aren’t commonly seen, so of course I had to take a shot or twelve of him.
We are so lucky to have such wonderful birds as permanent residents of the area, but we so enjoy the variety of birds that stop off on their yearly migration to escape the winter weather. I suppose that’s what most of us who live here have done also. We’re all birds of a feather.
I spy, with my little eye, movement in the shrubbery. I search with my fully extended zoom lens, and ask myself if I really saw a little eye looking out of that shrubbery. And I did! A baby black crowned night heron. A prize ‘catch’, since we all know they are tucked away in there, but finding them is the trick. And then mom is somehow there also, so I set the camera to take bursts of photos and thought I would have lots of pictures of baby heron chicks and their mom to choose from. But there was only one, and I suppose I ought to be happy to have gotten one at least.
The one photo that makes the rest of the 424 pictures worth taking.It took me a quite a while to notice the black feathers at the front edge of the wood storks wings, and here they are displayed on this baby’s wings. The three amigos.I was now possessed with zooming into the shrubbery in search of snowy egret chicks, or little blues, or even tricolor chicks. But all I found were great white egret chicks.Then a tricolor heron would fly in and duck into the foliage just to tease you.Ibis are so prevalent that I hardly ever take photos of them. I had a whole flock of them in my backyard in Spring Hill all the time. But they aren’t always at this rookery, hence the picture.It was getting late. The shadows were getting too dark to overcome. And besides, it was bedtime.
Not bedtime for us however. We headed to Ford’s Garage for a beer and some apps. Nice day…
Cape Coral is a 3 hour trip from home, which explains why we have talked about driving there before, but we were trying to ensure the best timing to see the burrowing owls with their chicks. April through June is what we have seen in print, but seeing chicks turning up on photographers Facebook feeds sent us off on our journey. Ordinarily I’d have been perfectly happy to see one of the owls at all, but setting your heart on seeing a chick is asking for disappointment. Maybe it was bad luck, or maybe it’s just that we don’t have any ‘inside’ information on places to look.
We stopped at a park to eat our lunch and talked with a resident who was shooting hoops on the playground. I asked if he knew any good spots to see the owls and he said they are ‘everywhere’. And yes, the marked off nests for the burrows were easy to spot as we drove around, but we didn’t see any owls there. He said that Hurricane Ian had hit the area hard, and the burrows were abandoned because they were wet. But now, he said, they are starting to see the owls returning. He noticed two owls that had returned, one on each side of the road, on his dog walks. He said that after a while they had joined forces and were now at the same burrow. Maybe that is good news. And I have to hope that his observations hold true, that the owls are returning. And soon all the nesting sites will be occupied by these cute little birds.
This one was standing near a perch that marked his burrow.Up on a perch and striking a pose.turned his face to the sun and the wind ruffled his feathers.We saw a total of three owls, all seemed to be on their own near a burrow.This one posed in some greenery.
When we left home our destination wasn’t the Myakka River State Park, but it was only a half hour away from our destination, and after driving an hour and a half to get there it was a shame not to stop by. There are spoonies there after all, and I see the most beautiful photos of them online. In those photos they are landing, or taking off, or just flying overhead. But none of that was going on when we got there. You can see them from the parking lot, and the path to walk to get a closer vantage point is not too long. But what was going on, or not going on, is evident in the feature photo. Maybe it was the fact that we were there in the afternoon, possibly siesta time.
The spoonies hang out where the river meets the lake, which just so happens to be where the gators hang out also. Lots of them, just to the left of the scene in the feature photo. And also in the water, swimming over to get a closer look at us as were take our pictures from the opposite shore.Was the great blue paying attention to the gators in this picture? The little blue certainly wasn’t. And the spoonies aren’t paying attention at all.They weren’t all totally inactive though, I just had to look a little more closely.And when I saw one shaking it’s booty I made sure to get a picture.Of course spoonies weren’t the only birds there. I shot bursts of photos trying for pictures of this osprey flying right overhead. When you shoot bursts the camera needs a break to catch up with itself now and then. And during one of those buffering moments this osprey dove into the water and came up with a fish! Right in front of us! But I can’t prove it because I missed the shot, darn it.We both took lots of pictures of this black-necked stilt because we hadn’t seen one before. He was wading and hunting for his lunch with lots of other wading birds.Among the waders were a few limpkins. They were hunting for their favorite treat, apple snails. But any snail will do. Their beak has a bit of a twist to the end, specialized for getting the snails out of their shells. They must be successful because the riverbank was covered in empty shells.Finding a little blue heron there shouldn’t be a surprise, they seem to be everywhere.
As always it was a fun way to spend the day. And we have to take advantage of the weather while it’s still a relatively cool 80 degrees or so. Hot in the sun if you just stand there, but in the shade it just can’t be beat!
We had such a fun day at the B a few weeks ago, but I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see the painted buntings. On this trip we saw a cameraman sitting and watching, and sometimes shooting, in the garden area. I was pretty sure he was photographing buntings, but was afraid to approach for fear the trike would scare them off. It was right at the start of the day, and when I first get the trike out it seems to have a bit of a knock that goes away after a bit. But then he motioned us over and said that they weren’t shy at all.
They were on a lawn and in the shadows, and trying to will them into the sunshine just simply didn’t work. I had a harder time holding steady than usual too, and I could have gone back to the car for my tripod but that didn’t occur to me.There were only a few of the zillion shots that were usable. I used my old Tamron 18-400 lens with the adapter, thinking I’d be ready for anything. Might have outsmarted myself.The sweet little Mrs. was also present…It was so nice to have these sandhill cranes posing so nicely for us. They were all over the neighborhoods in Spring Hill, but when I see them now they always seem to be along side a busy road. Even if there was a place to pull over I’d be afraid that my attentions might cause them to step into the road. So this was a treat. They are beautiful birds, but their overall gray-ish color makes them blend into the roadside scenery sometimes. It can be startling as you are driving and you don’t notice them until they are very close.Those noisy grackles seemed to be having a disagreement up in the tree top.I don’t pay a lot of attention to the anhingas since they are always displaying their feathers like this. But I couldn’t ignore this one.I now know where to look for the eagle nest, but it is too far away to get in closer than this.A bit further up the trail we have the ‘big boy’ hangout. Huge alligators across a smallish stream and on the far bank sunning themselves. When I say huge I mean HUGE.In this same area is this great blue heron nest. I couldn’t see any activity in the nest, but I didn’t watch for very long.We spotted the windmill that day too.
We are so lucky to have this great place to go to see wildlife. And each time we go back we see different birds, and sometimes animals, and so we return again, and again.
Well, almost that time again. The time when our drive to Clearwater for our Tuesday night photography club meeting coincides with the sunset. That means that as we make the long trip down Edgewater Drive I will be shooting photos out the car window with my iPhone. The last time I did that the sunset was fabulous, and I held the phone out the window a bit further and didn’t see myself in the side mirror, or I could crop myself out of the picture. This time we were a bit early for the really great color to have developed quite yet, and I was reluctant to hold my brand new iPhone 14 Pro Max far enough out the window to get myself out of the picture. Maybe I ought to sit in the back seat next time. Nice evening, fun meeting.
We weren’t going very fast, but too fast to have any control over what the scene was actually going to be.We were early because we intended to stop for photos just a couple of blocks from the meeting place. This looked like a very nice sunset developing, and if there was any place at all to pull over we probably would have.Now that the weather is cooler we will have to ride our electric vehicles down the bike path from one end of this drive to the other, stopping for pictures of course. Maybe not on a Tuesday though, so we can take all the time we need to enjoy the ride.
A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens 