A tale of two lakes

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I caught this squirrel eating right next to the hummingbird feeder.

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The only decent shot I got. I forgot to bring my tripod and even though I had my monopod, the light was awful. The feeder was in the shade so I wasn’t able to get a good picture of the hummer hovering over the feeder.

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Bug on a ball. Lettuce Lake Park in north Tampa was quiet on a Saturday morning in late June. So I did what any respectable birder would do. I left and went somewhere else.

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Twin Lakes is not a park. Just a lake at the entrance to a subdivision in what I call is the boonies. This subdivision should win a prize for one of the top birding neighborhood spots in Tampa. Constant traffic, dog walkers and joggers going around this little lake. The first thing I spotted was a baby moorhen.

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A mom and younger baby was close by.

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The baby was getting a bite from Mom. It’s funny to see his little wings go so fast when he was getting his food.

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The above juvenile grackle was chasing after his parent for food.

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I had heard there were baby purple gallinules at the lake. I first saw the adults coming out of the leaves right in the middle of the pond.

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Then I saw three tiny black dots. These are highly cropped taken with my 300mm lens.

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The parents stayed close to the babies.

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Walking around, the parent must have been looking for food.

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The baby is so tiny. He could only be a few days old. There must have been another family with older babies because I had read about them over a week earlier.

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I don’t know what that was she had in her mouth but it didn’t look like food.

Not too bad for a walk around two different parks. Even though it’s summer and hot and not many birds around, there’s still a lot to see out there.

Camera Critters

6 thoughts on “A tale of two lakes

  1. Oh what a wonderful photowalk you did, and with lots of babies. I am a bit distracted with the unproportionate sizes of the moorhen baby’s feet and body. And that piece of stone at the last photo, i can’t imagine what that is for. Are birds known to crack nuts using stones? Very interesting photos indeed.

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