Florida headshots

I recently took a trip to Southern Florida. Here is a quick series of "head shots" of some of the birds that allowed me to get very close. There is no particular order to these photos, I made an identification error last week while naming one of these birds. If you see anything that is wrong, please let me know. I hope you enjoy them.

Willet on the beach on Sanibel Island, Florida

Palm Warbler, Flamingo, Everglades National Park

Nesting Osprey

Male Boat-tailed Grackle bathing at a boat ramp along Interstate 75

American Alligator. I know it is not a bird but I could not bird in Florida with out being aware of how many Alligators, turtles and smaller lizards were present. I did not see living snakes.

Green Alone. I do not know how old you are but when I was a kid every pet store in Wisconsin sold these. I remember buying one for a quarter and it laid an egg the next day. I spent the following three months waiting for it to hatch in a makeshift terrarium I made out of a dill pickle jar. I was a strange kid, not much has changed.

Roseate Spoonbill in flight. These birds were difficult to get close to this will give you an idea of how bizarre they are.

I am not a big "Gull" fan. I believe this to be an adult Laughing Gull. He looks good in his winter colors.

This Millipede was about six inches long, just for that it deserves it's own head shot.

Great Egret at sunrise on Sanibel Island, Florida

Just feet away from the photo above this Great Blue Heron allowed to get just as close. Both birds allowed me to get with in ten feet. They are accustom to local fishermen and often mooch fish.

This is a HEAD SHOT, what is it? Think fast....ready? Scroll down and you'll see

Sandhill Crane. I stopped at a rest area on I-75 between Naples and Fort Meyers and found three cranes grazing in the picnic area. They allowed me to come within twenty feet and all three were posers.

Wood Stork at sunset on the golf course in Pembroke Pines, Florida. I love this picture, it came out so surreal with the sunset in back and the flash up front.

Drake Mottled Duck.
When I first saw this duck I thought it was just a hen Mallard. When it walked out of the water and I saw bright orange legs I had to look again. This is a new life list bird for me and I did not even know it until I looked at the photos.

Little Blue Heron

Juvenile Glossy Ibis

Soft Shelled Turtle

Green Heron. As I compared birding notes with two gentlemen from England in the Everglades National Park, This bird walked along the edge of the pond just feet from us.

Tri-colored Heron

Brown Pelican

American Crocodile. This big boy is at the Flamingo "marina" in the Everglades National Park. He was in the same spot a few years ago when I was there.

In the Puget Sound area I have found three crows with white on their feathers this year. In the Everglades I came across this fourth Crow with a color deviation. It's face had these white highlights and the wing feathers were more brown then black. The other crows in it's group were all the normal black.

Northern Mocking Bird

Anahinga

Grey Catbird

As I got of the car at the Everglades visitor's center early in the morning I caught this double head shot. The lizard is an Anole, the Bird a Great Crested Flycatcher

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I am not sure which was more surprising, the number of Iguanas I found or the number of places in which I found them.

Purple Gallinue. A stunning and interesting animal.

Common Moorhen. I do not see anything "common" about this bird. I find it rather noteworthy for a Coot.

Female Boat-tailed Grackle.

Another lizard I found in the bush. At times there were so many lizards scampering around in the tall grass and weeds I just left, they warned all of the birds in the area. This one has big feet and that awesome headgear.

Swan or Chinese Goose.

Muscovy Duck

White Ibis

Egyptian Goose

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Juvenile Cooper's Hawk

Turkey Vulture. Take a minute to compare this bird with the following two Black Vultures.

A juvenile Black Vulture? I say that cause when you see the next picture you can not think anything else.

Black Vulture Adult? Do the wrinkles come with age?

Just something to do with all the snow on the ground now. Be safe and take care.

Hitting the reset button

The first week of December 2008 I took a week off to travel to Southern Florida for various reasons. Family, business opportunity and an overwhelming urge to get the hell out of town for awhile all intersected in a relaxing and splendid week.

The flight to Fort Lauderdale went off with any problems. The car rental company did not have the sub-compact economy car I requested so I had to settle for a convertible. It was seventy-five degree outside partly sunny, a no brainier. Sometimes you have to sacrifice.

I was going to spend time with my in-laws,wedge in a business meeting and go photograph birds. My in-laws Herb and Mary live in a beautiful neighborhood in Pembroke Pines about twenty-five miles from the airport. Herb was recovering from a leg injury and I had not been to visit in a few years. Early each day I was out on the road, golf course edges and ponds looking for any birds I could find. This is rather embarrassing but in the seven days I was there I took roughly 2200 digital photographs. I spent time at C.B. Smith Park, Pembroke Pines, Tree Top Park and Long Pine Key Park in Davie, Florida. I took a day trip to the Everglades National Park driving every road from east entrance to Flamingo. Mary was so nice to invite me along on a round of golf so I could ride along in the golf cart to get close to the birds that hang out at all the ponds around the course.
My business took me across the I-75 corridor to the Sarasota area. On the way back I spent and evening and the following morning on Sanibel Island and the "Ding' Darling Wildlife Refuge. Mid-day I headed out for the Corkscrew Sanctuary. Traveling back roads led to the best birding photos.

Getting home after this week of birding kismet started out normal enough then went terribly wrong when sitting for five hours on the runway on a late plane in Houston waiting to be deiced prior to take off. Only to have to go around for a second deicing due to poor procedures by the airport staff the first time.

Can you blame them? How often do they whip out the deicing equipment in Houston Texas?

So I got home after spending eleven hours on a four and half hour flight. Getting home after a week of riding around with the top down taking pictures of birds contrasted sharply with impending snow forecasts the day I got back.

Here is a strange and eclectic mix of photos from the past two weeks.

In the Everglades National park these Ospreys were collecting nesting materials and mating. During the week I was in Florida I saw over one hundred individual Ospreys and seven nesting pairs.

Red Shouldered Hawks were not as plentiful as the Ospreys but did allow me to get a number of these fantastic closeups.

On Sanibel Island small flocks of Sanderlings fed along the mounds of sea shells in the surf. The beaches here are famous for the numbers and types of shell that wash up.

On the road from Fort Meyers to Immokalee, Florida I encountered small groups of Roseate Spoonbills and Wood Storks mixed with other wading birds. Along Florida Highway 580 I photographed more of these birds than anywhere else. I could not get this close to them at either the Everglades or Ding Darling.

This photograph beautifully illustrates the variety of bird life in the Southern part of Florida. A large group of wading birds each specializing in a different feeding technique roam the ditches and fields. Here a Roseate Spoonbill upper left flies with a Great Egret and White Ibis to it's right while overtaking a lumbering Wood Stork. This week of sunny and mild weather ended abruptly the day I left. Ice storms from Orlando to Houston shocked the south and slowed air traffic for days.

I got home in time to catch the end of the December Salmon run at the Chamber's Creek Dam. If I remember correctly these are a Male Chinook above and a female below.

If you have read any of my previous posts you have heard this story before.

The rich harvest of salmon brought a recently fledged Bald Eagle back to his birth place. I had affectionately named this young eagle "A" when he/ she left the nest a few months ago. Now I just call "him/her" homegrown.

Homegrown lands in a tree over looking the migrating salmon just yards from the nest where he hatched out and fledged. The first snow of the year had just fallen and the temperatures dropped to the low 20's.

Something happened to stop the flow of water in my small fountain while I was out of town, The snows came before I had a chance to dig into it to get it fixed. The snow kept coming and the temperatures kept falling. The lowest I recall seeing was fourteen degrees. This is not normal for the south Puget Sound area but not unheard of.

Heidi has been working on getting our Prickly Pair Cactus to acclimatize to the yard for a couple years now, the snow does not help but they are tough. This guy has been kicking around the house and yard for the past fifteen years.

This is the first snow encounter for the dogs and they LOVE IT. Phoebe loves jumping in and out of the potato box to elude Lister.

Any excuse to play. Lister is too big for Phoebe to throw around now but she sure does a good job of flipping him.

A little creepy but cute in his own special way.

Bunny trail in the snow.

The cool weather had brought a Fox Sparrow to the feeder and new pond a few weeks ago, with the snow fall two more Fox Sparrows found their way to the sanctuary.

A little too cold for a bath but a drink is good.

The Steller's Jays are ever present.

One thing that is predictable about winter int he Northwest is that when the snows start falling in the mountains the Varied Thrushes do a vertical migration from the Cascades to the Puget Sound. This male Varied Thrush was very shy and would not allow any pictures at the water's edge.

The female Varied Thrush was not as shy and allowed me to take several fantastic pictures.

When I originally envisioned building this pond I knew that if we had any significant snow fall during the winter I would have a chance to get a picture like this. I could see it in my mind's eye years ago, it just had to come together. I will get the pretty boy next.

Well, my past two weeks have been a bit busy and exciting. My trip to the in-laws was most enjoyable, the business trip promising and the bird photography simply amazing. I have over fifty pictures of the trip posted on my Flikr site. They are kinda two dimensional, this blog is more informative but I can not write everything here or I would never hit the "publish" button.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25348030@N07/sets/72157611108972746/

So here I sit with a tan and nine inches of snow at the door as I delete Florida birding pictures. Over all it has been very relaxing. My deepest thanks and love to Mary and Herb for the week, I hope to get back soon.