A cold afternoon with some birds on the beach

On May 20, 2026May 7, 2026 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography6 Comments

While my sister was visiting in February we stopped by the Seaside Seabird Sanctuary. The sanctuary is a hospital, rescue, rehab and release facility that admits around 3500+ injured birds a year. About 46% are successfully rehabilitated. You can always see a lot of wild birds hanging around the sanctuary, hoping for a free snack.

Checking out the resident pelicans. The residents all have permanent injuries and have a home here.

Wild great egrets nest in the tall trees over the sanctuary. I could hear some babies clacking high up in the tree that I couldn’t see and some adults were still building nests.

Great blue herons also nest here and this nest had a baby (follow the yellow arrow). He was still pretty small and I could just barely make out the fuzz on his head.

This couple was still flirting.

Wild pelicans also nest high up in the trees. They might be former rehabilitated patients or babies that were born here and released.

The wild pelicans are pretty docile and will walk right up to you (hoping for a handout). I took the above with my phone.

The sanctuary is right on the beach and they have a 2 story deck with a great view. The only reason this beach was not busy was because it was cold the afternoon we were there (high of 45 degrees).

A wild black vulture was trying to hide from me on the top deck.

The sanctuary had massive damage from the hurricanes in late 2024. They are still rebuilding enclosures and trying to catch up. You can read about the damage and see pictures here.

Nesting season was in full swing.

On July 5, 2025August 5, 2025 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography2 Comments

In early April I made the first trip of the bird nesting season to the north Tampa bird rookery. The small island in the middle of the big pond looked the same as last year. The cypress tree closest to land had fallen down and was laying on it’s side in the pond. The only remaining tree was in the far back and it was full of cormorants nesting.

The great egrets were busy flirting and showing off their breeding feathers. Even though there were a lot of babies many of them were just getting started.

I could easily see two great egret nests. One had chicks a little older than the other.

Some of the other nests had some babies screaming for Mom to feed them.

This nest had some older babies and Mom was busy feeding them. In the last shot you can see some regurgitated fish sliding down Mom’s throat and into the baby’s beak.

Wood storks staying cool in the heat of the afternoon.

A full wood stork nest with three babies. The one laying down on the left looks much younger than his siblings.

An older wood stork baby posing for the camera.

A 3 park morning

On March 19, 2025April 10, 2025 By dinajohnstonIn Tampa bay sights7 Comments

It was a 3 park morning in early December but all were in Tarpon Springs. I first started out with a walk at the most northern park, Fred Howard Park and Beach. I drove through the park and parked my car just outside the causeway to the little beach area. This was as far as I got. It was all fenced up to get out to the beach while they were still trying to clean up from the hurricanes in late September and early October. The flooding left tons of debris in the sand so they were sifting through to make sure no one gets injured when they open it back up and the parking lot was a big sand mound so they had to get that cleared. (It did open a week after I had made this trip).

As I walked around the park area I noticed most of the trees near the shoreline had their tops broken off.

Vultures were watching me walk around.

My next park was Sunset Beach Park just 5 minutes south of Howard Park. It had already been cleaned up and had just opened up to the public a few days before. I found a small flock of skimmers in the muck when I got out of my car.

The tide was super low this morning. The above were taken on the backside of the beach area.

Zooming in I could see the beach area of Howard Park just north of where I was. This was looking on the side of the island that is covered in boulders. The tide was so low I probably could have walked across the muck to get there.

Zooming in even more I could see great egrets dotting the exposed sand, picking off the exposed sea creatures for a snack.

A great blue heron flies close by.

My last stop on the way home was Craig Park just south of the main tourist area of Tarpon Springs. It’s a small park but has beautiful old trees with branches that touch the ground. It looked like most of the trees here did ok with the hurricanes but this whole park was underwater.

The main attraction here in the winter is the chance to see some manatees. There’s a natural spring here that is warmer than the gulf water and the manatees come into the bayou when it gets really cold. There were at least 10 the morning I was there but since the tide was so low they were huddle in the middle and farther away from the sidewalk. I was able to catch a few on video with their snouts coming up for air.

The annual rookery trip

On June 15, 2024July 13, 2024 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography7 Comments

In early April I made my annual trip to north Tampa to visit the bird rookery in the middle of a small pond. The first thing I noticed was the above dirty wood stork. Maybe he had just taken a bath in a muddy spot.

I could barely see these baby wood storks deep in the bushes. This was the only wood stork nest with babies I could see on this morning. It feels late this year. By late March last year the rookery had tons of baby storks.

A lot of great egrets were still busy flirting and working on their nests. Most of them had their green breeding feathers around their eyes and those pretty wispy flirting feathers.

There was one nest with a teeny baby great egret. It looked to be a day or two old.

Another nest had a bigger baby great egret that was begging for food.

There were a lot of glossy ibis but they nest in the far back and we can’t see them from the street. We have to wait until the babies are big enough to fly around the rookery.

A female grackle sitting pretty on the bush.

Every year it feels like there are less and less birds nesting here. The rookery island looks the same size. Have they moved on somewhere else or are there truly less birds? I made another trip in early May but more on that later.

Not able to sit still.

On May 20, 2023May 20, 2023 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography3 Comments

There are some great benches here at the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo. Right in front of this huge milkweed bush. The bush was covered in monarch caterpillars in mid-March. I sat for a while waiting for butterflies to come by but there wasn’t many flying around this morning.

This squirrel came over and sat near me and started eating something. He was the only interesting thing there so I left and headed over to McGough Park.

I couldn’t find any birds in the area around the turtle ponds and the turtles were already snoozing so I didn’t stay too long here either. I figured at this point I was close to the beach so I decided on a quick stop at the Seaside Seabird Sanctuary.

The injured pelicans were doing their morning flaps or taking a bath.

I could barely make out the baby great egrets high up in the trees over the exhibits. They had long outgrown the tiny nests they were growing up in but you could still see their pin feathers when they flapped their wings so they were not quite ready to start flying yet.

NIght herons were still sitting on nests although there was a lot of baby ones (the last one in brown and white with orange eyes) all over the sanctuary.

This night heron was showing the way to the shade garden although it’s really just a lot of overgrown mangroves.

Baby bird season

On May 28, 2022May 23, 2022 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography3 Comments

I headed up to the bird rookery in north Tampa in early April. I knew it was a little too early for a lot of babies but it was a nice afternoon out and this is an afternoon shoot spot since the sun comes up across the lake in the morning. Great egrets were in all stages of nesting. Some had eggs, some had small babies and some looked like they were still flirting and working on nests.

There were at least 2 nests up front with baby wood storks. They look so pretty when they are babies with that orange beak and blue around their eyes. Woods storks are listed as a threatened species since their numbers are still small and are vulnerable to changing water levels. We are fortunate that they are a common bird in the Tampa bay area. I see them at many of the parks I visit as well as in the ponds in my neighborhood.

Birds were busy flying in and out of the rookery, bringing food to the babies and adding sticks to the nest. I was able to catch a great egret and a tricolored heron going by.

A tricolored heron was picking up sticks from the water and bringing them back to a hidden nest.

A rare thing to see in the Tampa bay area. It looks like some glossy ibis have been nesting here in the last few years. The nest is on the back side of the island so I haven’t seen any babies yet. For a long time I only saw them at Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland but I’ve seen a few here lately.

Beautiful birds but a sad ending

On June 15, 2019June 3, 2019 By dinajohnstonIn bird photographyLeave a comment

Tricolored herons are always fun to watch. They are really pretty when they are ready to mate. I mean, how many other animals have their legs turn from gray to bright pink in the spring?

Snowy egrets are always making a fuss.

The great egrets were also showing off with those red eyes.

This is a sad story but happens in nature. There was a nest near the boardwalk with three almost grown babies that had apparently been abandoned by the parents. Maybe something happened to the lone parent? Meanwhile, a mean adult snowy egret decided it wanted that nest instead of building her own and she was going to steal it from the babies. She spent all morning trying to push the babies off the nest. One had been poked in the face and was bleeding. The sad thing is that if the original parents did not come back, those 3 babies were probably going to starve. They are too young to feed themselves. They were sticking together and fighting off the intruder. She eventually left that morning but may have come back later to try again. Gatorland won’t interfere because it’s common for this to happen in nature. I’ve seen it happen before in a park where we couldn’t reach the nest. It’s a tough life out there for these birds.

Wild zoo babies

On July 19, 2017July 19, 2017 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography1 Comment

An almost grown great egret scratching. This one must be one of the first ones born at the zoo this spring. He still had just a little bit of baby fuzz on his head.

Very young little blue herons were waiting to be fed.

Baby little blue herons that were a little older but not yet flying. They were in lots of different stages of growing up.

Screaming “Feed Me” in Mom’s ear.

Two baby great egrets still on the nest waiting for a parent to fly in with food.

My favorite part of Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa is the bird rookery at the alligator exhibit. It’s much smaller than the one at Gatorland but it’s close to home. The wild birds come in and nest right in front of the exhibit. While all of the kids are oohing and aahing over the alligators I am busy trying to get shots of the baby birds.

Linking to Wednesday Around The World.

Yummy fish for breakfast

On July 20, 2016June 28, 2016 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography2 Comments

Young great egrets are being fed by mom. The parents swallow the fish and then regurgitate the fish back up into the baby’s beak. Doesn’t that sound yummy?

A young cormorant was begging mom to feed him.

The youngest babies at the park that day. They are 1 or 2 day old snowy egrets. The parents were going to be busy feeding 3 babies. You can just barely see the fish eyes coming out of the mom’s beak. Looks like she had a beak full of minnows.

All morning long the babies yell to be fed. The tiny ones like in the last pictures aren’t so bad since they are so small and don’t quite know what’s going on yet. The bigger babies such as the top great egret pictures are obnoxious. They are really loud and flap their wings until they are fed. When the parent flies over to the nest they attack them. The parents keep feeding them though. All of the above were from my trip to Gatorland in May.

They grow up so fast.

On July 11, 2016July 12, 2016 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography6 Comments

Scruffy looking baby egrets. I think these were snowy egrets.

Baby blue herons sticking close together.

Baby anhingas already grown up.

Tiny baby wood stork on the nest.

Baby great egrets in various stages of growing up.

I was watching this almost grown baby great egret exercising his wings. I don’t think he had fledged yet. He kept practicing flapping but never made it off the bush. He was probably gone in another day or so.

It’s fun watching the baby birds grow up in the bushes along the lake at Gatorland. The trip in late May provided babies from all stages of growing up.

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