Black bellied whistling ducks in the fog across the marsh.
There was lots of activity going on with the whistlers flying back and forth all morning. I was a little bummed that the sky was so dark that morning. Started to drizzle while I was there.
The marsh was full of the whistlers in early November at Circle B Bar Reserve. I haven’t seen this many in several winters. They were all very noisy and unsettled early that Saturday morning.
Up close with a ruddy duck.
And black bellied whistling ducks. One was missing an eye
A pretty lady wood duck.
A very important sign. Even the night heron standing in front of it should not be fed.
“Hooo’s there?” said the burrowing owl.
Crawling critters behind glass.
Growing inside the aquarium, the beauty berry can be see in the many of the parks around Tampa. The birds and critters eat the berries.
On the wall in the aquarium, this would make cool wallpaper.
A few things from a recent trip to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. When it’s too hot to see the fishies from the beach, it’s time to head inside at the aquarium.
I think this is a very young red-eyed vireo.
A prothonotary warbler. They nest here in the summer.
I heard whistling and saw the black bellied whistling ducks on the top of the observation tower, only because there weren’t any people on the tower yet.
I snuck up the first flight of stairs and saw them looking down at me. I didn’t want to scare them off so I went back down and headed away from the tower. After a few minutes someone came down the boardwalk and headed up the tower so they flew off.
Some of the little critters at the lake.
Some young limpkins hiding under a tree near the boardwalk.
Great blue herons were all over the park. Including several sitting on nests.
A green heron was stalking something.
A sparrow hiding in the bushes.
The only black bellied whistling ducks I saw. The park use to be full of them. You could hear their whistling all over the park. I’m not sure why there are only a few now.
The robins were scrounging on the ground for bugs.
A lost royal tern. He should be at the beach.
A wood stork showing off. He was actually moving his foot around on the ground to stir up the bugs, frogs or snakes to eat.
A limpkin taking a break.
I caught a blue gray gnatcatcher being still for just a second.
A red shoulder hawk up high.
A marsh rabbit on Marsh Rabbit Run trail.
A few things I saw on my walk at Circle B Bar Reserve.
Pied grebes were floating everywhere.
There were a handful of glossy ibis.
The lake was full of coots down from the north for the winter.
This guy was right over my car. I took this hanging out the window.
“Stop lady, don’t drive into the lake” said the great blue heron.
The black bellied whistlers near the end of the drive stayed far out in the marsh.
This lady anhinga had a big gulp.
These big guys were all along the drive. I stopped the car and got out to take these but they were actually across the water.
There’s a lake north of Orlando that has a driving trail along the north shore. I decided to take my sister up there when she was here over the holidays. It was a good way to get out with doing a lot of walking. She had foot surgery recently so she wasn’t up for a long walk. We drove an hour and a half on the Saturday after Christmas to get there early that morning. At first there wasn’t too many cars there but the closer to lunch it got, the more cars were on the drive. I did see a few more birds than the ones above but only got distant blurry shots of a northern harrier, several bald eagles, a merlin and lots of tiny birds far out in the marsh.
I was out running errands on a recent Saturday and decided to swing by a pond that occasionally had interesting things floating around in it. I got lucky this time with a family of black bellied whistling ducks. I had my camera in the car so I parked and walked over to take a peek. They were all settling down for an afternoon nap. I sat down on the sidewalk for a few minutes when they all popped their heads up and looked surprised. It was because the below had invaded their napping spot.
The soft shell turtle came up and wanted to hang out with the ducks but they wanted no part of him. They all jumped up and looked and him and the poor turtle took a dive back under the water and left.
I walked into a black bellied whistling duck convention at Circle B Bar Reserve in late January. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a lot of them there and even now there’s not as many as the past years. They don’t hang out in the trees anymore. At least not on Saturday mornings. The trees use to be dripping with them as you walk down the trail.
