Peepers in the road.

Posted on August 17, 2023 by dinajohnston

I was heading for another chiropractor appointment in Ybor City early one morning and I saw a Mom with her babies standing in the middle of the road. I drove down the road they were on and they were not going to move. Since I had a few minutes before my appointment I pulled over into a parking spot and got out and shooed them back on to the sidewalk. They reluctantly allowed me to move them over.

At first they all ran and hide under Mom.

Then the babies started to wander around nearby.

After my quick appointment I drove back down the street and there they were, back in the middle of the street again. I guess they feel like they own the streets (they are protected here) and spend a lot of time in them. I was just being a tourist trying to shoo them over to the sidewalk.

I found another Mom nearby with several bigger babies.

The boys were still strutting around in the same spot as last week.

This Mom had 6 babies.

Driving down the main street (7th Avenue) at 9:30 in the morning, most of the restaurants and shops had not opened up yet.

Baby cluckers everywhere

Posted on July 22, 2023 by dinajohnston

I found a new chiropractor to try in Ybor City who came highly recommended so I headed over for a visit. I threw my camera in the car just in case I saw some baby chickens in the streets in Ybor. This part of Tampa is full of chickens and roosters. The story is that they are direct descendants of the chickens that lived here with the neighborhoods earliest resident’s over 100 years ago. They roam freely in the streets and are protected.

After my early appointment I drove a few blocks over to Centennial Park where most of the chickens hang out. I found several families and didn’t even have to leave the car. This Mom was busy with 10 babies to keep track of.

Roosters were strutting everywhere.

Another Mom with 7 babies.

I’m not sure if this is a juvenile or just a really small chicken. She was alone.

The boys were hanging around together.

The statue of Nick Nuccio, a former mayor of Tampa, He was Tampa’s first mayor of “Latin” (specifically Sicilian) descent. Most people think of Ybor City as just a history of Cubans and the cigar factories but there were just as many Sicilians back in the early 1900’s.

It was fun seeing all of the little babies and since I had several appointments I took a ton of pictures so there’s more to come.

Cute little fluff balls.

Posted on July 31, 2021 by dinajohnston

I recently spent a morning at Horsepower For Kids. Walking around the farm, I found a Mom chicken with several tiny babies. They were hanging out around the horse stables looking for bugs. I had to sit down on the sidewalk and watch Mom teaching them how to look for bugs, scratching around in the dirt.