Anhingas are like clowns. They have the funniest personalities, that is when they are not half asleep drying their wings out. They sway their head back and forth and honk when you walk by. The males have a black neck and the females have a brown or beige neck. I think that last one was yawning.
Egrets along the trail. A snowy, cattle and a great egret in the last one above.
Other birds along the trail at Circle B Bar Reserve in early January were a limpkin looking for food, a grebe doing his yoga stretch, a glossy ibis glowing in the sun and a hawk looking out over his domain.
And one of the hundreds of blue-gray gnatcatchers.
This little moorhen was walking along the trail with someone.
Anhingas are pretty common along any body of water in central Florida. They swim under water and spear fish with their beaks. They flip the fish into their mouths and swallow them whole.
I caught this one struggling a few minutes before getting it down.
There was an osprey flying right above me looking for fish. They swoop down and grab fish with their talons.
I caught this anhinga about to take gulp of fish down at the other end of the channel.
The above were taken back in late October. The wintering belted kingfisher made an appearance in our channel and was hanging out on my neighbor’s dock. These were all taken over the course of the weekend. and all were through the bedroom window.
Then a few weeks later, I saw a different kingfisher on our dock. The female kingfishers have a rust colored band across their chest so I knew it wasn’t the same one from late October. So, now we have both a male and female hanging around our channel this winter. The female showed up on our dock late one day and was still there right before the sun went down. All taken through the bedroom window.
The very common palm warbler. They were falling from the sky. I’ll try not to take too many pictures of them this winter, even though they are the most accommodating birds.
Even though you can’t see his legs in this shot, this is a yellowlegs. He’s a shorebird that should be at the beach. He was all alone in a small marsh.
Another missed baby black bellied whistling duck opportunity. They were far out in the marsh and getting ready for a nap. They were probably going to stay in that spot for hours.
I counted six but I think there were more hiding in the reeds.
Phoebes where everywhere and you could hear that distinct call all over the reserve.
This common yellowthroat sat still for 20 seconds. Long enough for me to get the above. Then he took off.
A barred owl was sleeping close to the trail and everyone was stopping to watch him. He would not wake up and he was hidden behind a lot of branches. We kept going down trail and an hour later when we came back, he was still sleeping.
“This is how I eat my dinner. Bang the fish on the branch so he won’t wiggle when he goes down my throat.”
Yes, I have a ton of blue-gray gnatcatcher shots. But they are so cute and there were so many of them.
The great blue heron doesn’t bang his fish before swallowing. He flips it over a few times and swallows it wiggling.
More of the usual stuff from Circle B Bar Reserve. The first weekend in November was perfect. Although we were a little cold starting out. 50 degrees at 8am. I didn’t even take my jacket off until we got in the car at noon.
My first stop was near work. There has been a male canvasback sighting. I saw him pretty quickly but he was far across the pond. This was my first canvasback sighting.
He stayed pretty far away.
My next stop was Kapok Park in Clearwater. I hadn’t been in a while and wanted to see what was going on with the owl couple. With all of the recent rain, mushrooms were everywhere.
I found one owl high up in a tree.
The other one was also high up in a tree close by. This is a sad sign. After sitting on the nest for two months, it looks like they were not successful this year with babies. The same thing happened last year. For 3 years they had babies, two years ago was twins.
Across the lake, I saw this anhinga with a huge fish. He was banging it on the tree and did eventually swallow it.
I left Kapok and then headed north to Possum Branch Preserve to look for the Nashville warbler that had been sighted there. No luck on the Nashville. Tons of palm warblers and yellow rumped warblers. This was all I kept snapping. The “I’m outta here” shot.
I did have this house wren sit still for a few seconds.
There were two hawks chasing each other high up in the sky. I only managed to catch one.
Out of three stops, only one was a success even though that canvasback was so far away. He was in a fenced off retention pond so I couldn’t get around to get closer. No owl babies at Kapok Park this year but I have been visiting the baby owls at Fort Desoto. Three weekends in a row. Those pictures will be coming up later.
A beautiful morning to be out.
