Tag: myna

A weekend in south Florida

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography, Vacation4 Comments

In March Brett has some relatives from Canada visiting the Fort Lauderdale area so we headed to south Florida for a long weekend. We stayed in Dania Beach and while we weren’t actually on the beach we had a great view from our room. We could see the planes from the airport taking off and the cruise ships out in the port.

I caught a video of the now defunct Spirit airlines taking off.

I was up early one morning heading to breakfast and stopped at the window in the hallway to catch the sun coming up.

From the other end we could see the sunset and the guitar hotel lit up at nearby Hard Rock Hotel.

We had some time one morning before meeting everyone for lunch so we went for a walk around the hotel.

We saw a lot of myna birds. Even though they are pretty they are invasive to Florida. They are destructive, driving out native birds and damaging crops and fruit trees in the area. Their population in south Florida has exploded and we now have some in the Tampa Bay area.

A view of the sawgrass marshes as we headed home on Alligator Alley.

Almost home as we were about to cross the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

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Not my first myna

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography4 Comments

I had heard there was a pair of myna birds nesting in a storefront near my old office. Since I was going to be running errands nearby I threw my camera in the car. I found the nest one morning in late May but no birds at first.

After sitting in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to decide whether to leave and come back late or just wait, this bird flew up to the nest. It has some leaves in his beak so he must have been adding to the nest.

Another one showed up on the light pole. This one had a band on his leg. Mynas are not native to the US. Years ago they were popular pets so these could be escapees or they were let go.

They are pretty birds with that yellow around the face. I had not heard of them being in the Tampa Bay area until this spring. They are common down in south Florida though. Just a few weeks earlier when Brett and I were visiting relatives with his sister and her husband we saw one. We were having breakfast early one morning at a diner in Dania Beach and Laureen said “There’s a bird in the parking lot with yellow legs and yellow around the face”. I couldn’t think of what it was but we were able to find it hopping around the cars and sure enough it was a myna, my first one. I didn’t have my camera and it flew off quickly so I didn’t get a shot. Then 2 weeks later I hear about this pair right here in my area.