Tag: baby chicks

Sunshine out in the field

On By dinajohnstonIn flowers and plants, Tampa bay sights2 Comments

Even though I had a few sunflowers blooming in my front yard I still made the trip up to Brooksville to Sweetfield Farms for their sunflower festival. There is something therapeutic about walking around a big sunflower field and then clipping some to take home. I had not been to this farm for the last 2 sunflower seasons, only stopping at a closer farm that doesn’t have events to quickly cut sunflowers.

This farm is very Instagram worthy. Lots of great photo ops here and they have lots of activities for little ones.

But the sunflower maze and fields are the main attraction.

Along the back fence the sunflowers were towering way over my head.

There were lots of fun critters here including grasshoppers. I saw a ton of them on this trip.

I think these are strawberry fields amaranth flowers. They were really pretty.

They had rows of zucchini and squash and many still had the blossoms on them.

The baby chicks are always a popular.

A picture perfect barn. Inside were just-picked vegetables to buy.

Some of the goats were eating the grass on the roof.

There are a lot of bees here. I didn’t get too close and was using my camera. They fly away if you get close and are picking the sunflowers. We need the bees so it’s better just to let them go. This is a big fundraiser for this farm to sustain their business without outside help. It gets really crowded on the weekends (I went on a Friday) and luckily I think they only had one rain day. I picked a few sunflowers, a few zucchini and a ton of zinnias to take home but more on those later.

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Summer clucking

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography5 Comments

In early August I headed over to Ybor City early one morning to see if there were any summer baby chicks running around. I found two hens each with two babies. It’s weird to think there are wild chickens running around near downtown Tampa but I think they have been a long time. They say that the chickens have been here over 100 years, since the first Ybor city residents were living here before downtown really existed and there were small farms in the area.

They were so cute to watch. The chicks were curious but did not stray to far from Mom.

Looking for chickens

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography3 Comments

I wanted to get out of the house for a walk on a Sunday morning in early June so I headed over to Ybor City near downtown Tampa. I got there well before 8am thinking I would be the only one there but there were a few joggers as well as some people cleaning up the streets. The bars and restaurants had just recently opened up and everyone was hanging out in the streets the night before. I brought my camera along to see if I saw any baby chicks. The first outdoor bar I passed, wedged between two buildings, had chickens running around.

Key West has their roosters running wild around town. Well so does Tampa in Ybor City. They were cruising the parking lots looking for dropped food.

There was lots of baby chicks over at the small park in Ybor. They are so cute when they are that tiny and they were sticking close to Mom.

My Corner of the World

A fun morning at the petting zoo.

On By dinajohnstonIn zoo animals3 Comments

The last time I was at Horsepower for Kids petting zoo/animal sanctuary was in early March.  At the end of May I stopped by right after they had re-opened up.  I figured this was a good place to get out and stretch my legs and it wouldn’t be crowded. Everything is pretty spread out and there were only a few other people there first thing in the morning. These above juvenile geese were growing up in the safety of a pen with a small pond before being released in the big lake.  I realized that they were just eggs when I was there in March and now they were almost grown up. It would have been fun to see them as tiny fluff balls but at least they were growing up to be handsome loud annoying big geese.

The best was seeing the baby peacocks although they were pretty shy and stayed under the bushes. I”m sure the neighbors close by wouldn’t think more peacocks were the best though. So cute!

This goose let me know to stay back (taken with my 400mm lens and cropped).

I only saw one baby chicken wondering around with the adults and she was pretty big.

A few of the other smiling faces.

This beautiful bird was a rescue that the sanctuary had recently taken in. It was a former pet and was very friendly.

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Critters roaming the streets

On By dinajohnstonIn Florida animals, Vacation3 Comments

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Chickens and roosters were everywhere. Roaming the streets and making noise. We happened to be there during baby chick season. I counted 6 different baby chick families along the streets. They were in empty lots, parking lots, walking down Duval Street. I’ve read several different stories about why they are running amuck around Key West. I was expecting to see more cats. We only saw a few. The dogs in the above were hanging out in a hat store. A lot of stores had pets.I guess that’s part of the charm of this little town.