In early April I made my annual trip to north Tampa to visit the bird rookery in the middle of a small pond. The first thing I noticed was the above dirty wood stork. Maybe he had just taken a bath in a muddy spot.

I could barely see these baby wood storks deep in the bushes. This was the only wood stork nest with babies I could see on this morning. It feels late this year.  By late March last year the rookery had tons of baby storks.

A lot of great egrets were still busy flirting and working on their nests. Most of them had their green breeding feathers around their eyes and those pretty wispy flirting feathers.

There was one nest with a teeny baby great egret. It looked to be a day or two old.

Another nest had a bigger baby great egret that was begging for food.

There were a lot of glossy ibis but they nest in the far back and we can’t see them from the street. We have to wait until the babies are big enough to fly around the rookery.

A female grackle sitting pretty on the bush.

Every year it feels like there are less and less birds nesting here. The rookery island looks the same size. Have they moved on somewhere else or are there truly less birds?  I made another trip in early May but more on that later.