Tag: great-tailed grackle

A busy morning walking in St. Pete.

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography4 Comments

Near the end of December I headed down to St. Pete to look for white pelicans that spend the winter at Crescent Lake Park. I hadn’t heard that they were back yet so I didn’t take my big camera. I just brought my phone to take a walk around the lake.

Of course they were there (and my camera was not so these are all with my phone). Many of them were hanging out along the bank and were pretty close to the sidewalk.

There were also a lot of them swimming around the lake in small flocks.

A short video of them swimming to the bank. At first I thought there was going to be a territorial fight but they all got along. I did make it back here a few weeks later with my camera so more on the white pelicans later.

After my walk around the lake I headed over to nearby North Shore Park to visit some of my favorite trees along the beach (this is on the bay). The tall palm tree on the far right in the 1st picture lost it’s top in the hurricanes.

It was a super low tide which is normal for late December. The low tides in the winter are crazy here.

The tiny pier building looked so far away from here.

The rare great tailed grackle is still hanging around the park here. I first saw him in 2023 so he must like it here. People still come from all over to see him. He should be living on the western part of the country.

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A 4 stop road trip morning

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography6 Comments

It was an early morning in April and I was looking for a new bird. A great-tailed grackle had been spotting in St. Pete somewhere in the North Shore Park area.

I found this guy but it was a boat-tailed grackle. The only real difference between the two are the color of the eyes. The boat-tailed has black eyes and the great-tailed has yellow eyes. Their call is also different.

There he was, right in the parking lot near the pool. Those bright yellow eyes gave him away. He was right in the area where people had been spotting him. I haven’t heard of one being in the Tampa Bay area before. They are found on the western part of the country so he was far off course.

Meanwhile, this Cooper’s hawk was there as well, looking at me like I was crazy.

I noticed the trees were blooming.

I’m not sure if squirrels can eat these big balls hanging from the palm tree but this one seem to be hiding in them.

I made a quick stop at nearby Crescent Lake Park to see if the white pelicans were still hanging around the lake. I only saw 2 of them on this visit. I don’t know if the other ones were somewhere else in the park or if they had already headed north for the summer.

Another quick stop on the way home and I found some black-necked stilts and yellowlegs. They were all hanging out along the ditches near the waste plant. It was still a little early for stilt babies.

My final stop of the morning (but really only a quick drive through) was of the peacock neighborhood. There’s a neighborhood in Clearwater that has tons of wild peacocks roaming the yards. I had recently heard there was an all white one there so I drove through looking for it. I found it but more on that later.

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