A typical morning in central Florida.

On April 25, 2016April 26, 2016 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography, Florida animals10 Comments

I still haven’t seen any news on this great blue heron nest. A while ago there was a great blue heron always sitting on the nest for weeks. Then it was abandoned. Weeks later when I was there, I saw this great blue heron looking around. So are they trying again? They’ve had babies in this nest for several years now.

I found the limpkin family again on this trip but they were further away from the trail. The babies were growing up so fast. They now look like the parent, only smaller.

Northern Parulas were all along the trail but they stayed high up in the trees.

A green heron prowling around in the muck.

A glossy ibis doing the same thing.

The dragonflies were out.

A few crawling critters were out on the trail.

Just a few things I saw on my walk in mid-March at Circle B Bar Reserve.

Our World Tuesday Graphic image-in-ing

Residents birds and birds passing through.

On October 5, 2015October 6, 2015 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography16 Comments

Yellow-throated warblers are moving through, heading south for the winter.

I think this is a northern parula. They are common right now but this one looks a little scruffy

A male cardinal eating a berry.

The female cardinal is wondering why he isn’t sharing his berry.

The two above pictures are a yellow warbler.

The titmouse and cardinals are year round residents at Chesnut park. The other ones are just passing though. On their way south for the winter. Although, when I took these in mid-September it did not feel like winter would be coming any time soon. Fall migration is in full swing here in Florida but I feel like I’m missing it with work and vacation. Brett and I spent some time in Flagstaff, Arizona hiking in late September. We had beautiful cool weather so I felt like I had a tiny taste of fall. I’m working on the tons of pictures I took now so I’ll be bombarding you with those soon.

Our World Tuesday Graphic image-in-ing

Small critters at Lettuce Lake

On May 11, 2015May 12, 2015 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography15 Comments

A carolina wren looking guilty with that mouthful of greens. He’s building a nest somewhere close by.

A northern parula deep in the woods was chowing on a worm.

A lot of people were looking for the prothonotary warbler that had been reported there earlier in the week. No one had seen it that morning. Right before I left, I saw this yellow bird in the bushes and snapped a quick picture. When I got home I realized it was the prothonotary warbler everyone had been looking for.

Diana, the park ranger showed me this tiny ball high up in a tree in the woods. I had to look through my 300mm lens to see it. When I got home and cropped it up, I realized you could see the tiny blue-gray gnatcatcher sitting on the nest. It looks bigger in the picture but was smaller than a baseball. I can’t imagine you could see the tiny babies until they were ready to fly off.

Dragonfly season is in full swing.

Hanging around.

This was an early morning walk at Lettuce Lake in north Tampa in late April. I went to see if I could find the barred owl family. I found them and a few other birds along the boardwalk. More on the owls later.

Our World Tuesday Graphic image-in-ing

Quick walk after work.

On May 4, 2015May 5, 2015 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography14 Comments

He’s looking at her like “Why are you showing off?”

Getting a drink and a bath at the same time.

It’s already looking like summer.

Flowers are blooming. Butterflies are everywhere.

I think this is a northern parula.

A male orchard oriole hiding in the bushes.

I couldn’t help myself. Taking more hooded warbler pictures.

I couldn’t decide which picture a liked more, the one above or below. Either way, just a weed growing along the trail.

Stopped by Fort Desoto in late March after work. I didn’t have a lot of time before it got dark and was hoping to get some sunset pictures but it got cloudy as the sun was going down. No sunset but a few birds on the trails. So I got a good walk in before dark and then headed home.

Our World Tuesday Graphic image-in-ing

Migration can be a pain in the neck – Skywatch Friday

On May 15, 2014May 11, 2014 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography6 Comments

My first blackpoll warbler of the season.

Cape May warblers were everywhere.

Red-eyed vireo.

A first-summer male orchard oriole with mulberry stains on his chest.

I think this is a female orchard oriole.

I think this is a first year female Baltimore oriole.

Another red-eyed vireo.

I saw one northern Parula that morning.

Baltimore oriole.

My first black throated green warbler.

A male orchard oriole taking a berry break.

Prairie warbler doing some weird acrobats.

Bye,bye, orchard oriole.

A female rose breasted grosbeak.

It was a busy day in mid-April. A big fall out day. Spring migration was in full swing and I knew I’d come home with a neck ache from staring up in the trees all morning. I was right. Birds were everywhere but they did not sit still very long. There were almost as many people at Fort Desoto that morning. Everyone was yelling out bird names: “there goes a female blah blah”, ” I just saw an immature male blah blah”, ” has anyone seen the yellow blah blah?” All of the little birds were starting to looking alike, especially the yellow and brown ones. Let me know if I got any of the above wrong. People had driven from all over the state to check birds off their list. I met a ton of new people and ran into people I hadn’t seen since the last migration. It was catch up day. The next couple of weekends still had a few birds but not like this big weekend. I also saw a lot of little red birds and blue birds. More on those later.

Check out more sky pictures at Skywatch Friday

New birds at Fort Desoto

On May 6, 2012April 25, 2012 By dinajohnstonIn bird photography7 Comments

I have seen one other eastern kingbird. But it was from far away while I was kayaking.

My first orchard oriole. This one was female. I have to laugh though. I was getting confused because there were so many birders out this morning and then the above would fly by and they would say “There’s an oriole.”. Then the one below would fly by and someone else would say the same thing. I kept thinking “someone doesn’t know their birds very well.” People keep calling two different birds the same thing. Well, I was the one who didn’t know. The below is the male version. They look so different.

My first male orchard oriole sighting.

My first northern parula.

Not a first bird, night herons are everywhere here. We were quietly sitting in front of Larry’s fountain hoping something tiny and cute would fly up and all we got was this big thing. He looked around like “Why are all these people sitting around in the woods?” He took a couple of drinks and left.

The woods were full of butterflies.

A couple of weekends ago I headed down to Fort Desoto. This was before the big “fall out” weekend but I had heard there were a few migratory birds already there. I headed to the mulberry bush woods and there was already a traffic jam through the trails. Rush hour traffic looking for birds. (And my hubby thinks I’m the only one.) The best part was having a lot of experts around to help with IDs (unless they got any of the above wrong). It saved me some time looking randomly for tiny birds in my Stokes 800 page guide. It was a beautiful morning to be at the park. I spent most of the day there before getting a flat tire on the Howard Franklin bridge on the way home. Triple A came to my rescue.