Tag: brown pelicans

Watching the birds catch bait fish

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography4 Comments

On Christmas eve I made my usual trip down to south St. Pete to the Bay Pines National Cemetery to visit my parents. I didn’t stay long and it was such a beautiful day that I decided to swing by the beach on the way home to stop at one of my Dad’s favorite places, the Seaside Seabird Sanctuary. 

This rescue, rehabilitate and release sanctuary sits right on Indian Shores Beach. They also house many permanently injured birds.  It looks like it was feeding time.

A couple of quick videos of them feeding. It was funny to watch the white pelican stick his whole head in to get the fish.  Then the snowy egrets said “Hey, I can do that too!”.

They were catching live bait fish in the tubs.

Pretty faces. Most of the pelicans are missing a wing or eye.

A wild night heron hangs out hoping for a free snack.

A shot of the view from the deck on the way to the beach.

Saturday's Critters

 

A walk along the water

On By dinajohnstonIn Tampa bay sights3 Comments

In early November Brett and I went for a walk along the waterfront near downtown St. Pete.

The old historic pink hotel (Vinoy) looked pretty against the blue sky as we passed by. Built in 1929, the hotel was taken over by the Army during WW2 and was used for training. It has been said that it is haunted.

Walking past the boats at the municipal marina.

As we walked out along the pier this sailboat came close to us. It swerved at the last minute.

Pelicans were diving along the pier.

The old pier pilings are still in the water and the pelicans like to sit on them. The inverted pyramid building and the pier were torn down in 2015 and the new pier was completed in 2020.  You can read my post about the old and new pier here.

Watching the pelicans diving under the pier. The bait fish are plentiful under the pier so the pelicans are constantly diving around it.

Taking a break after climbing the back stairs of the pier building.

The view of St. Pete from the top floor.

Bees buzzing on the goldenrod that was blooming along the pier.

The orchid trees in the parking area were in full bloom.

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Blue and purple alien life form on this planet.

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography3 Comments

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It feels a little early for mating season but since we’ve had warm weather this winter the birds are getting busy.  On the island in the middle of the pond at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, the pelicans were building nests and doing some extreme flirting. Most of these pelicans are injured. You can see in the last picture the pelican is missing one of his wings.  Most of these injuries are due to getting caught in fishing wire.

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I did notice a very tiny bald head under one of the pelicans. The pelican above had 3 babies that had just hatched under her wing.

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A few times the parent got up to stretch and we were able to see the babies a little better. They must have been only one day old if that. They looked like little blue aliens.

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It was a busy morning for them as they were trying to feed, nest and bath all together.

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Looks like they were having fun splashing around.

The pelican island at the wildlife park is a safe place for these injured pelicans to live. The babies that they have can grow up and fly away whenever they are ready. We were lucky to have been there on a warm day right when the first of the babies were born. By now these guys are almost fully grown. Soon Mom will be an empty nester again.