Owls – A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens

'scene' along the way, a second look, adventure, Florida landmarks, Florida wildlife, friends, fun, nature, Nature's beautiful creatures, Owls, Pedaling Along, perseverance, photography

In search of…

March 9, 2023March 8, 2023 naturecoastimagesblog

I think we just wanted to get out and ride the trike and scooter, and take whatever pictures came our way, so it was off to John Chestnut Park. Now that I’ve seen gators in the park I apparently can’t go there without seeing them. It was a little one, but not so little that I didn’t cut off the end of his tail in my feature photo.

Dragonflies were landing on the leaves in the water near the alligator. Not a great picture but I’m glad they are back and zipping around.

This grackle flew from branch to branch keeping the walkers, and riders, company. And yapping at us to give him a treat.

This red bellied woodpecker was just doing it’s thing, ignoring the people who were gathering and taking pictures of the nearby barred owl.

Two people had to point us in the right direction to find this guy. I’m told his name is North. Yes, I probably could have tried to take that stick out of the picture, but but I surrendered before I drove myself nuts trying.

So he was playing a little joke on us? Hiding in plain sight.

We talked to a fun gentleman on the fishing pier and I told him that we had been seeing pictures of owls taken in the park. He immediately took out his phone and showed us some of his photos. He said they are everywhere, just keep your eyes open.But he said I had asked the right person because he was the president of the SOS, Secret Owl Society. Says he has a tee shirt with that title emblazoned across his chest, only the ‘O’ is an Owl face. Then he told us where to head, only when you are talking about riding on the trails it’s easy to get confused. But when you see people gathering and taking pictures that’s a good sign.

'scene' along the way, a second look, adventure, birds, connections, Florida wildlife, friends, fun, life goes on, nature, Owls, Pedaling Along, perseverance, photography, Uncategorized

Mouthing Off…

March 25, 2022March 24, 2022 naturecoastimagesblog

My computer is back on my desk after nearly a week in the care of the Apple geniuses. For the first time in what seems like longer than a week I began to write this post on my computer, and was startled to see that the last post I made was my 1300th post. That’s seems like a lot of mouthing off on my part in the nearly 4 years since I took the class on ‘How To Write a Blog.’ At the end of that class the framework of the blog was in place, and the rest is history. I told myself not to start writing, I told myself that I’d run out of things to talk about in a week or two, and I was sure I’d regret starting at all. But I did, and I haven’t regretted it. Thank you to those friends who read it, and thank you to the people I will probably never meet who also read it. I love the connection I feel as a result of taking this leap. It’s been therapy for me these last few years. I’m not sure I’d be in this same place if I’d never have begun this journey.

We decided to go see the eagles the other day. We wanted to see the juvenile eagles before they flew the coop, and it also was a good excuse to ride our bikes on the not-so-busy trail that passes right by the nest. We found Mom and Dad at the nest, but didn’t see the babies. It seems as if Mom was also mouthing off as we started down the trail.

We took a different path this time, and found that the path we expected would lead to a trail actually led to a very long boardwalk.

And the boardwalk dead-ended at a small beach. It was a pretty day, wonderful to be outside.

When we passed by the nest on our return trip we were happy to see the juvenile eagles. This one was fairly hard to spot, blending into the color and texture of the bark of the tree.

The second one was more in the open, but in the shadows a bit.

One adult was along side them in the nest tree. Keeping an eye on things. I forgot to keep track of how many miles we traveled that day, but we have 40 miles total on the bike.

We stopped by the owls on the way home and failed to see the babies, two of whom are still doing well under Dad’s care. The largest owlet and the mother owl died from rat poison, and there was much fear over what would become of the other two owlets. In reality we failed to see the Dad also. This picture was taken with my camera but by a young man who was attempting to point out the dad. He thought the picture would show us where he was, out in plain sight. Just not our sight.

Mouthing Off may not have been the best title for this post, but Typing Off wouldn’t have made much sense…

'scene' along the way, a second look, adventure, birds, exploring new places, Florida wildlife, friends, fun, nature, nesting, Owls, perseverance, photography, road trip

In search of the burrowing owls…

June 1, 2021 naturecoastimagesblog

Ridiculously cropped from my first photo of the day. Now it’s all gravy for the rest of the shoot.

When they aren’t nice enough to be up on a stake keep looking…

And if you see four at once you might choose to backtrack and shoot lots of pictures.

'scene' along the way, a second look, adventure, birds, Florida landmarks, Florida wildlife, making memories, nature, Nature's beautiful creatures, Osprey, Owls, perseverance, photography

Philippe Park…

March 28, 2021 naturecoastimagesblog

This park is just lovely, but I usually don’t stop to admire it’s green and shady peacefulness. My usual process is to get to Safety Harbor for the sunrise and then head to the park to see the owls, and once I’ve gotten those pictures I’m ready to drive the hour home again. But I did take a few moments to take some pictures of the park the other day. I love the stonework of the retaining walls and the path that zig zags its way down the slope to the water. As I took the feature photo I saw a bird fly through my shot, you can see it just below the horizon line towards the right hand side of the photo. I thought to myself that I hoped it would look good in the shot, but what took me by surprise was the big splash I heard a second later. I thought it must have been a pelican since they aren’t graceful when they hit the water, but I was surprised to see an osprey with a fish flying up and away. You know I took pictures but they were all too blurry to bother with.

As I approached the car to go home I saw a photographer under a tree near my car, shooting up into the branches. There had been a group there earlier also, and I was told that there was a screech owl up in that tree. I have a hard enough time seeing the much larger great horned owls so I stuck to my guns and got my owlet shots, and then my shots of the park, so I made one last stop and discovered that the osprey had chosen that tree to stop and have his lunch.

Now I was ready to go home, but I stopped to talk with a woman who asked me about the owls. I walked her over to the spot where I had stood to take my pictures and couldn’t spot the owlets, or the mom, and the entire lighting seemed very different. Sometimes you just get lucky I guess.

'scene' along the way, a second look, adventure, birds, friends, fun, life, life goes on, nature, Owls, perseverance, photography, road trip

Burrowing in…

May 12, 2020 naturecoastimagesblog

Two years ago yesterday I was lucky enough to tag along with an experienced birder as he showed me where to find the burrowing owls ‘here’ in Florida. Here being hours from home, but a day trip, and that trip allowed for lots of stops to places I had only heard about along the way. In looking through my old photos in the computer these pictures of the burrowing owls stood out simply because of how cute they are. But then I thought of how we seem to be burrowing in these days, and how totally unaware we were of what was heading our way. That there would ever be such a thing as quarantine. It’s getting to me, I have to admit it. One year ago I had forced myself out of my comfort zone to start my camping adventure, spurred on by the fact that I had shot my mouth off and said I was going to do it, so I had to just do it. Now this lack of activity has me wondering if I’ll be able to get myself going again when its over. It will be over eventually, right?

a second look, birds, changing times, coping, Florida wildlife, following the rules, life goes on, moments, nature, nesting, Owls, perseverance, photography

Two by two…

April 5, 2020April 4, 2020 naturecoastimagesblog

These are the Honeymoon Island owlets from 2018. I looked for these pictures when I wanted to post pictures of animals choosing to snuggle. An anti-social isolation sort of thing was what I had in mind And when my friend was visiting not long ago I did remember to take her to Honeymoon Island to see this year’s crop of owlets, but it was disappointing compared to this visit. Our view was straight on and across a distance. In 2018 they were ahead and to the right. But then I also had taken my big heavy tripod and lens with me back then also. I dragged it with me because it was new at the time. I can talk myself out of it more easily these days. So these are more old photos through new eyes. Photo ops from the computer, perfect for the times.