It was another eagle-eyed photographer who pointed out the little alligator lurking in the weeds at the edge of the water at the rookery. A baby alligator, which implies that a mommy alligator must also reside in there, the thought of which hadn’t ever crossed my mind before this visit.
We ask a lot of our cameras and lenses these days. We aim into the shrubbery and ask them to focus on the subject, and they do. Cameras these days will lock onto eyes once they find them. These three tricolor heron youngsters are still on the nest, still calling for their mother to bring food, even though they are getting big.Night herons are hard to spot, unless you are lucky enough to see them fly in and land.Just the second nest of egret chicks I’ve spotted at the rookery. We can hear the babies, but the nests don’t happen to be located well for us to see them.This must be what mamma sees when she arrives back at the nest.Photobomb!This is the first picture I took that day. I was excited to finally see a wood stork baby. But it didn’t keep its head up for very long, and the foliage was waving around in front of the nest, so this is the only shot of it that I got.
Technology, I’m a fan. But I barely use the capabilities of the camera I already own, so I don’t spent much time wishing for newer, better equipment. If I would put my mind to it I would probably be amazed at what else my camera can do, but once I’m out there ready to take pictures I forget about everything and just have fun. And that is really the point, isn’t it?
The hummingbird is still showing up every day, but only when I’m not prepared to take a picture. I can open the sliding glass door and pick up the camera just fine, but opening the door to the lanai will cause the ever-present doves to take off, and that’s enough to make the hummingbird zoom away. It may not be the biggest issue on my mind lately, but still…
The red belly seems to enjoy getting her treats from the birdie feeder.And then she took off with her treat. But she returned again and again.
I can’t spend all day sitting with my camera waiting for the hummingbird, but I am in the kitchen and able to peek out the sliding glass doors off and on all day long, and that’s when I’ll spot him. I should just watch and enjoy him, and let him visit the flowers in peace…
I’m still waiting for the hummingbird to show up while I’m sitting there with my camera ready. At least an hour and a half a day, and at the times he’s shown up before, but so far I’ve missed him. Also missing are the bluebirds I was enjoying so much. I tried safflower seeds in the feeders, chosen because I was told that the redwing blackbirds don’t like them. And it has worked! No more four-and-twenty invasions lately. And no birds either. Or not many. And the seeds are all over the ground, tossed out of the feeders in protest maybe?
If you try hard you can see the little white seed that this Carolina chickadee has in its talons. They grab a seed and fly onto a branch and peck at it until they get morsel inside. Up until now the butterflies have been ignoring the flowers in the yard, but lately they have been stopping by.This dragonfly was practicing his acrobatics. Maybe he was inspired by the young girl next door who was showing me her cartwheels and splits the other day.I will enjoy the dragonfly photo ops while they last.I’ve been trying to get a photo of the brown thrasher that’s been showing up the last few days.There are a pair of them. Then I heard a very different bird call and Merlin informed me that it was a brown thrasher, which is why I didn’t think I needed to double-check that that’s what I was seeing.Cardinals used to be the main event out there, and they are still out there every day. They just used to be outnumbered.
You don’t always get what you want, says the song. So I’ll keep waiting on the hummingbird to visit again…
We had just mentioned that we hadn’t seen a hawk in the area for quite a while. And we wouldn’t have seen this one if he hadn’t announced himself as he flew into the area. I thought he would just fly past, but he landed in a nearby tree, and once he did that I saw that he had joined another hawk who was there waiting for him.
I immediately got excited that maybe there was a nest up there, but once I got the camera and zoomed in I could see that they were just visiting.Then the hawk that had flown in took off again, but the other one stuck around for a bit.If the second hawk hadn’t flown in I wouldn’t have realized that one was in the area.
Things are busy at the feeders in the early morning, and then again later in the afternoon. I wonder if the hawks have anything to do with that. It was still early when we saw them. I was lucky to have an angle to shoot from with the sun still rising to my left just far enough to get some pictures. I’ll be watching the trees a little more carefully from now on.
Yes, there were birds at the rookery that we have enjoyed going to visit, especially because it was fairly close to home, but not nearly in the numbers that we have seen in the past. Our frequent trips to Wild Birds Unlimited to replenish the stock of bird food take us right past it, so we have stopped a few other times also and were disappointed to see few birds. But we were encouraged by postings from other photographer friends that suggested that the birds might be back. Our stop a month or so ago had been pretty discouraging, in that there were almost no birds there. And we have heard similar reports about the other rookery that is in ‘our’ area. So I looked up info on Google about birds abandoning rookeries and found out that yes, they will if a disturbance has happened. And they might set up shop again not too far away, but it didn’t sound as if they would return to the former rookery. As densely populated as this area of Florida is I’m wondering where they would find another area to go to nest and raise their young.
This egret at least seemed to be gathering nesting material.We saw a few anhingas also, but the trees weren’t full of their nests as they have been in the past.And so the few that were there had lots of real estate to themselves.
Wood storks seemed to have had the first hatchlings in the past, but we saw no wood storks at all that afternoon. The only excitement was that tricolor heron from the feature photo. He was tiptoeing through the, um, I’m not sure what those water plants are but they certainly weren’t tulips. There were nests of tricolors at this rookery in the past, but this one was the only one we saw, but at least he seemed to be happily hunting a snack.
If not for our Tuesday club meetings we wouldn’t have known that there was a raptor fest going on at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve on Saturday. But plenty of people did know, so much so that we parked at the high school and took a shuttle over to the preserve. And that had us arriving in the nick of time to see the ‘show’, but we weren’t able to get the most ideal vantage point for pictures. But what a unique opportunity to see these birds and hear their stories. The feature photo is Steve, the very entertaining host of the day, with a Harris hawk who performed beautifully.
There were two Harris hawks actually, and they flew together.Off he goes.A peregrine falcon, which I hadn’t seen before.Of course rewards were a part of the performance.Not much was asked of the Great Horned Owl except to look handsome.Here you see the disadvantage of our position, with the grandstand full of people as our background to our photos of this Condor. But in this case I had to wonder about the image the lady got on her cell phone.After the show we took notice of the birds who were being held by volunteers who are essential to the success of this preserve. Red-shouldered hawks are commonly seen here in FL, but not up close like this.this eagle got a close up, mostly because my long lens wouldn’t let me get far enough a way for a long shot.A barn owl close up.A pretty Kestral.I was interested ti see this Swallow-tailed Kite. I’ve taken pictures of them flying overhead in the summer, but I hadn’t ever seen one close up.
For one reason or another these birds aren’t able to be returned to the wild, but they do an important job as ambassadors to make us aware of their importance in nature.
A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens 