Tag: anhinga with fish

Saturday morning drive around the bay

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography13 Comments

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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.

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He stayed pretty far away.

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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.

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I found one owl high up in a tree.

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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.

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Across the lake, I saw this anhinga with a huge fish. He was banging it on the tree and did eventually swallow it.

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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.

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I did have this house wren sit still for a few seconds.

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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.

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Also, check out more birds at Paying Ready Attention  for 

Little to big

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography19 Comments

DSC_9152The tiniest bird I saw that day. A blue-gray gnatcatcher looking up.

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Not too much bigger is the eastern phoebe. You can usually find them hanging out at the intersection of Marsh Rabbit Run and Heron Hideout.

DSC_9137A little bit bigger, there’s been a kingfisher hanging out in the same corner as the phoebe.

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This early fall, there’s been a purple gallinule family hanging out in the same corner as well.

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Getting bigger, I found these juvenile limpkins hiding in the marsh. They still have some baby fuzz on them.

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A parent was close by watching me.

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The American bitterns are back. This one was hiding in the marsh on Wading Bird Way. Another photog with a keen eye found him.

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Taken right into the sun, the anhinga was flipping his fish.

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“I’m the biggest one here.” says the turkey vulture showing off.

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“Bye, bye” says the ducks as they take off after an eagle flew over them.

Lots of the same ole thing at Circle B Bar Reserve in mid-November.

Check out more pictures at Our World Tuesday Our World Tuesday Graphic

Also, check out more birds at Paying Ready Attention  for 

My first yellow-headed blackbird and some boring other birds

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography11 Comments

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A horrible picture of my first sighting of a yellow-headed blackbird. Birders had been posting about seeing this fairly rare bird here in a neighbor almost an hour from my house for a few weeks. He had only been sighted late in the day so I finally headed out there on a recent Sunday afternoon while hubby was watching football. I looked around for an hour and didn’t see him so I left and ran over to Medard Park which is close by for a quick walk over the boardwalk. I headed back to the pond to look for the rare bird again and after looking for almost 2 hours, he showed up right before dark. And, he was right in the middle of a pond so this is extremely cropped.

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On my way into Medard Park, I see a few vultures eating an armadillo.

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I think this is a caspian tern, just coming out of the water.

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This anhinga was catching bait fish right below the boardwalk. Since I had my fixed lens I couldn’t zoom in and this was all I got of her. The fish looks nice and tasty!

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Due to the overabundance of apple snails, the park is full of limpkins.

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Great blue heron shaking off some water.

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This alligator was laying in the pond in the neighborhood where I saw the yellow-headed blackbird. How’d you like to walk your dog around that thing? Yes, people were out walking their dogs around the pond while I was there.

So this is what I do when Hubby is watching football (or playing golf). Drive around town looking for birds. It was too nice an afternoon to be indoors doing chores (which is what I should have been doing). The chores usually wait until a weeknight after work when it’s dark anyway.

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