Critters close to home

Posted on February 19, 2022 by dinajohnston

I was coming home from the grocery store and saw this guy feeding in my neighborhood. I had my camera in the car so I had to make a quick stop and shoot this.

I’ve been keeping an eye out on the towers in the neighborhood and one day I saw this juvenile eagle sitting high up. Several of the towers have nests but I was thinking they were all osprey nests. One of the nests was an eagle’s nest. Maybe this guy was born in the neighborhood last year?

There’s a water reclamation facility close to home and every winter the pond is filled with wintering ducks. I finally stopped to check out what kind of ducks they were. This is a small section of the ducks that were in the pond. The majority of them were redhead ducks but there were a few lesser scaup mixed in. I think this pond has the highest number of wintering ducks in the area.

There were a few hooded mergansers staying away from the other ducks and kept close to the fence.

One morning I was heading to the Oldsmar fishing pier and I caught these guys right before the pier. “A spoonbill, a woodstork and a great egret walk into a bar…..”

I was heading to the fishing pier because I had seen an eagle sitting in the tree in the parking lot there back in October. I hadn’t seen him since until this day. He was cruising around the fishing pier before taking off over the houses nearby.

Funny “Bird” faces at the zoo.

Posted on February 22, 2016 by dinajohnston

Inca tern in the aviary.

Blue bellied roller in the aviary.

Crazy lorikeets in the lorikeet feeding aviary.

A hooded merganser hanging around the manatee exhibit. I’m not sure if he is part of the zoo. I didn’t see a band on him.

The marabou stork couple flirting on the nest.

I was looking around up in the trees to see if any of the wild birds are nesting yet and saw this barred owl high up in the pine trees.

More pictures from my recent trip to the Lowry Park zoo.

Another “Funny Faces at the Zoo” post

Posted on February 8, 2016 by dinajohnston

I always see red bellied woodpeckers up in the trees at the zoo.

Everyone loves the little meerkat “clowns”.

The marabou stork is back on the nest. Last spring she had 2 babies. She doesn’t look too happy about having to sit there for weeks.

The front of an Okapi.

The back of an Okapi.

“There’s a piece straw hanging in front of my eye. Maybe I can reach it with my tongue” says the giraffe.

A hooded merganser snoozing over the manatee pool.

Injured manatees recouping at the zoo manatee hospital.

He seemed so serious in the first picture so I asked him to smile.

A few funny things at Lowry Park zoo.

Hoody in my neighbor “hood”

Posted on December 28, 2015 by dinajohnston

The tiny pond in my neighborhood has a rare occupant every winter. I finally saw him recently and stopped by to take his picture. The hooded merganser was the only duck in the pond that wasn’t a muscovy duck. He usually has a mate with him but this morning he was alone. I hope she’s just late getting in from up north. I hope he doesn’t spend the winter alone in this little pond.

Hooded mergansers are very skittish. He stayed across the little pond at first. I sat down on the grass and all of the muscovy ducks came swimming over to me. They sat next to me and I guess the hoody thought I wasn’t a threat because he did swim a little closer. He never got all the way to the edge or up on the bank but he did get much closer than usual. He also spent some time preening in front of me which a good sign but maybe he’s lonely. I’m going to keep looking for that lady duck.

The faces that get no respect, the muscovies came right up to me and I’m assuming they were looking for a handout. After a few minutes they just plopped right down next to me. I didn’t feel like getting up so I started taking pictures of their faces. They are almost like snowflakes, no two faces are just alike.

They got bored with me and started snoozing. It was time to go home.

Backyard in November

Posted on January 5, 2015 by dinajohnston

An ibis sits on our dock.

We see the hooded merganser couple almost every day. Most of the time they stay in the middle of the channel but occasionally I’ll peak out the window and they are right in front of our dock.

I was out in the backyard taking this picture. He was keeping an eye on me. If I took one step more away from the house, he would have gone swimming down the channel.

The neighborhood osprey tugging on his fish.

He would take a bite and then look around, repeating this the entire time he was eating.

The house sparrows were already fixing up the nest in our dock.

Taken through the bedroom window, the neighborhood kingfisher was watching me as he was trying to gulp down his fish.

Blooms in the yard in November.

Check out more pictures at Our World Tuesday

Also, check out more birds at Paying Ready Attention for

High up in the sky – Skywatch Friday

Posted on February 27, 2014 by dinajohnston

This was the first time I’ve seen hooded mergansers at Circle B Bar Reserve.

Tricolored heron reflection

Wood stork out in the marsh.

Baby great blue heron almost grown up, still on the nest.

Cattle egret fly-by.

White pelicans coming across the lake.

White pelicans flying over my head.

Not quite fully grown eagle flying high up.

An adult eagle flying over my head in circles.

It was a rare beautiful morning in late January. This winter seems to be the year of the icky weekends. I know, it could be worse. I could actually be living up north where it SNOWS so I can’t complain. There’s still hundreds of white pelicans at the park but they usually stay pretty far away, across the lake. You have to catch them flying high overhead. It was a quiet morning but a perfect morning for a long walk.

Check out more sky pictures at