What is it about little ducklings that are so cute???
Even hybrid mallards are cute when they are sleeping.
The wood duck is just cool, posing for me.
Another cool duck, the shelduck is not native to Florida. The city of Lakeland bought them for the downtown lake.
Even grackles eat fish.
The usual things sleeping and floating around Lake Mirror.
The one on the left is a gadwall. This is my 2nd gadwall sighting.
The female hooded merganser was watching the mallards sleeping. The canvasback on the far right noticed me.
There were two female canvasbacks hanging out with the mallards. No male ones in sight.
She was checking me out as she went out for a swim.
What did the female canvasback say to the female hooded merganser? “Us women have to stick together.”
The canvasback looks a little like a goose.
Gotta itch.
I stopped by the local office park pond to look for any new ducks. Only the usual mallards with a few wintering ducks thrown in.
Drippy ducks.
“She’s showing off her booty!” he said.
Showing off.
“Let’s go for a swim, lady.”
“Wait, come back eagle.” I said
Watching the practice game.
Cruising by at sunset.
Pretty in pink.
Thirsty plants?
Nosy neighborhood kitty.
There’s a little pond right next to a busy intersection. There’s a church, school, trailer park and office building surrounding it. A paved trail runs around the pond but I was too lazy to walk all the way around. I drove my car to the little parking lot along the pond and got out. Walked 5 feet and snapped all of the above. The sun was starting to go down behind the trees and I was going to be late for a dinner date so I only stayed for 10 minutes. I had heard there were some fun ducks there. I found the above plus some canvasbacks, gadwalls and red breasted mergansers. More on those later.
The usual friendly gnatcatcher.
Some type of warbler? Looks like a palm warbler but they don’t have the white tips on their wings.
Osprey right over the boardwalk.
Female anhinga right over the boardwalk.
Weird spiky plant.
This guy was right below the boardwalk. I only had my fixed 300mm so this was all I could get.
Yellow crowned night heron looking grumpy.
Ducks on the golf course across the creek.
Bitter gourd or balsam pear are both names for this fruit. You can only eat it when it’s green and then you must cook it. Eating it uncooked or when it’s yellow/orange is very toxic. I think I’ll skip it even though it has a ton of nutritional value.
Male anhinga drying off his feathers (or showing off for the ladies nearby).
I hadn’t been to the Largo Central Park Nature Preserve in months. Since it’s not too far away and I had limited time on a recent Saturday morning I headed over for a visit. It’s a small park with a golf course on one side of it and an electrical plant on one side. Not a lot of birds but I did get to see the otters that live there. More on those later.
Check out more pictures at Our World Tuesday 
Also, check out more birds at Paying Ready Attention
I stopped by a local park to see if the great horned owl was nesting yet. There she was looking like she’s been sleeping for a while.
The park was pretty quiet except for the normal mallards mottled ducks (thanks to Wally for the correct ID. We get a lot more mallards than mottled here.)
And boring old warblers.
I saw this cormorant swimming way too close to the alligator.
Then I heard some commotion in the reeds near me and saw an otter with a fish. He saw me looking at him and moved around to the other side of the reeds where I couldn’t see him.
I moved around to the other end of the boardwalk and was able to see him but he was into the sun. He chowed down on that big fish for a few minutes before taking off.
Just a few things on my walk around a small park recently on a Saturday morning. I’ve seen otters there before but usually down in a little creek and they don’t hang around for a second. The above was out in the open lake but wanted to eat his fish in peace. After that last shot, he disappeared. I looked for him for a while but no sign of him again. I’m keeping my eye on that owl. Last year she had two babies so hopefully I’ll be able to watch more babies grow up this year.
Check out more pictures at Our World Tuesday 
Also, check out more birds at Paying Ready Attention for 