Sunday, February 15, 2015

Valentines Day Weekend Part 2

(Continued from Valentines Weekend Part 1)

A Wood Stork in flight.
On Sunday, after a nice visit with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Sherm, we headed out to Wakodahatchee. I had the intention of finishing the weekend with my 300th photographic life bird. Did I make it?? Read on... for starters though, this was a photogenic, but not life, Little Blue Heron.
 Woo-hoo! Lifer #299! A Neotropic Cormorant, right as we entered the park. You can tell he his a Neotropic because he has feathered lores, not orange ones like the Double-crested Cormorants.
 A Great Egret, who was totally in the mood to get down. You can tell by the fancy outfit and green on the face.
This was either a Neotropic Cormorant or a Double-crested-Neotropic hybrid, David was quite sure as it had field marks of both.
Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. A guy we met called these Mexican Tree Ducks. I  don't know why. But they are very cool birds, one of my favorite duckies.
This was a Grackle, but he just looked so expressive. Look at his face!
He was singing, and just looked so happy.
Here he is going for a high note.

All nature is beautiful, but Egyptian Geese could use a few make up tips. A little eye shadow goes a long way, sweetie.
This picture of nesting Wood Storks with an Anhinga tells a story:
"Hey, someone should tell her she's in the wrong nest." "I don't wanna tell her, you tell her..." "No you..."
A Great Blue Heron and a Cormorant.
Two Great Blues thinking of getting down. Well, HE was thinking of getting down, she wanted no part of it and chased him away.
This was weird. These two Gallinules started fighting.
Then they started kicking each other.
Then the started whapping each other with their wings.
And more kicking!!
Meanwhile, this bystander just laughed at the whole thing. I swear, it was like a 9th grade gym class!
Black-bellied Whistling Ducks in flight.
A Palm Warbler.
A Yellow-rump Warbler, aka "butter butt"
A Northern Harrier put on an awesome display!
I think about 40 people with cameras wet their pants while he was putting on this display.
Present company included. I wanted to applaud when he was done.
Finally, a Green-backed Heron with green on his back!
"Hey... that fat chick with the camera... I think she is stalking us... act casual..."
Male Mottled Duck.
Female (top) and male Mottle duck.
Another Egyptian Goose, smiling, but still in need of a little less eye shadow.
The Mottled Duckie couple.
Egyptian Goose and Gator. An ill-fated romance if I ever saw one.
I just love Pied-bill Grebes, they look like such a happy little birdie.
A Purple Swamphen
A Black-belly mooning.
This was somewhat disturbing. There were about 5 of these iguanas on the rookery island. I hope they don't eat eggs.  I didn't even know iguanas could swim!

A Red-wing Blackbird posing nice.
This Little Blue Heron looks like he is kissing his own reflection. It reminded me of a poem my mom used to say, "You love yourself, you think you're grand, you go to the movies and hold your hand, you put your arm around your waist, and when you get naughty you slap your face!"
A Snowy Egret.
Another Soft-shell Turtle. We saw a lot of these this weekend.
We were on the way out of Wakodahatchee when a lady asked us what this was. This immature Purple Galinule was so well disguised that neither David or I noticed it till the lady asked us about it...
But the the Gallinule was all like, "Hey! You want a picture?? Lookit my arm! Ain't it purty?"
"Lookit lookit lookit! Who's a pretty bird? Screw parrots, I'm a prettier bird!"
This was my last series of pictures on my way out. It's just a Common Gallinule, but I thought it was so pretty.
The water was so still here, it was like a mirror.
You could turn this picture upside down and not even know.
Ok, so we left Wakodahatchee and came home to do my Manatee watch. I had an awesome weekend, didn't get my 300th life bird, but there's always tomorrow. So, I'm taking the water temperature at the manatee watch, and this little boy asks me what I'm doing, and I give him the Manatee Temperature lecture, and he tells me that he just came from down the berm and he had seem "a bunch of manatees on the bank" I thought this was a little weird, so David and I went down the berm to check it out. There were about 8 manatees that we hadn't been able to see from the manatee overlook, but they weren't actually out of the water, just in shallow water.

Then, my darling husband mentions that he thinks there are Vesper Sparrows in the area that we were in, and he found one for me, and I had my 300ths life bird!!! Yay! We high-fived, and I came home and started to update my photographic life list. Except after all of that celebrating, I realized that I had miscounted, I forgot that I had one bad ID from a few weeks ago. So alas, this Vesper Sparrow was actually 299. So, I will save 300 for yet another day! But David is still the best husband ever, I'd probably still be in the double digits were it not for him!

Valentines Day Weekend Part 1

So my sweetheart, in addition to getting me Shari's Berries and taking me out for curry and to see the new Spongebob movie, also took me out birding. I was shooting for my 300th life bird, but alas it was not to be. I did get 2 more lifers though, so now I'm up to 299.  Here are the pix from an awesome weekend.

We started off the weekend with a very chilly but fun tour of Adams ranch.  This cow was smiling at us.
These are the Abeef cows (I didn't ask, but I assume the "A" stands for Adams as it's a breed developed there. Very pretty reddish-brown color to them.
I wanted to hop off the buss and offer this guy  a napkin.
This was a Braford cow, I think they said this breed was also developed here.
After Adam's Ranch, we went off to Green Cay. This was a Limpkin doing his Flamingo imitation right at the start of the boardwalk.
Tri-color Heron.
This Coot was smiling.
Check out his feet. They aren't webbed like regular duckies, they have lobed toes, shown here.
Great Egret, looking great.
Green Heron, smiling.
Sora, smiling too. It was just that kind of day.
I thought this was a girl Red-winged Blackbird, but I think we decided that it was actually an immature male.
A grown up male Red-wing Blackbird.
Another shot of the immature male. He was really pretty.
Speaking of immature, here is an immature Little Blue Heron.
Compare and contrast with an adult Little Blue Heron.
This picture made me laugh. Anhingas tend to usually look all serious, this one looked quite disheveled.
Hiding in the shadows was a Black-crowned Night Heron.
Ok, now I'm not a prude, and I do realize that it was Valentines day and all, but seriously?? These turtles were having an interspecies 3-way RIGHT IN THE OPEN BY THE BOARDWALK. There are 2 Peninsula Cooters and a Red-eared Slider in the middle. Pervs!
A Soft-shell Turtle.
I think this was another Peninsula Cooter (a non-pervy one!)
This picture just looks weird to me. It's a Green-back Heron, but he looks like he doesn't have any arms or wings. I dunno, maybe it's just me.
Sora.

(See Valentine's Weekend Part 2)