Permanently injured white pelicans that live at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park. They are beautiful birds.
Getting their morning snacks from a park ranger.
They have a white morph great blue heron missing a wing that lives there.
Wood stork also getting breakfast.
Pink fluff balls (spoonbills) all lined up.
You can get up close to all of the beautiful birds at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park just north of Tampa. The sanctuary is home to a lot of injured birds.
There’s always lots of fun critters at Crescent Lake park near downtown St. Pete.
I caught this ibis trying to eat a frog in the middle of the road.
The fungus on this old tree looks like icing on a cake.
I found a few white pelicans floating around the downtown St. Pete sea wall.
Things at the small beach area on the bay side of St. Petersburg (know as The Burg) in late December.
It’s rare to see a lone white pelican. This guy was actually in the group below.
It’s beautiful to watch the white pelicans gracefully float around the water and feed. They don’t dive in head first to catch the fish like brown pelicans. They work in a group to herd the fish into shallower water. Bobbing up and down they look like they are synchronized fishing. I found them in a small lake in central Florida. They only stay here in the winter.
One swam under a water fountain in the middle of the lake.
Several flew over my head.
Linking to Wednesday Around the World
There’s a small flock of white pelicans that spend their winters at Lake Morton in central Florida. I think they may stay there all year round now. They have become acclimated to having a lot of people around since this is a busy park. In mid April I stopped by to take their picture and they ignored me. Kids were running around and they slept through it. I guess it’s good that they feel comfortable here.
Bright flowers were blooming everywhere.
One of the fun outdoor things to do when my sisters are here for Christmas is to drive over to the Tampa Electric Company to see the manatees. The electric plant pulls in cold water to cool the plant and flushes out the warm water so the manatees spend the winter in the channel next to the plant where the water is warmer.
It’s always fun seeing the manatees floating around in the channel. Several of them were floating on their backs. Some of them only stick their noses out to get air.
They have a new stingray pool where you can pet them. You can also see them out in the channel swimming by.
The mangroves along the channel are covered in these black mangrove crabs.
White pelicans were flying high over our heads.
Pretty flower in the butterfly garden.
It was a beautiful day right before Christmas but too warm. 82 degrees is too hot for the end of December. It would have been nice to have long sleeves on when we were out running around. The tourist from up north didn’t seem to mind. I’m sure they were all happy to be out of the snow. The Manatee Viewing Center at TECO is only opened from November through April. Even though the weather was warm, there were still plenty of manatees to see.
A few monk parakeets were flying around the parking lot.
It was low tide on the beach and very few people were there so the shorebirds were napping. Although, something kept spooking them and they would all take off flying in a circle and then come land in the same spot.
There were two white pelicans floating around in the area around the beach. They were hanging out with a bunch of cormorants. They stayed pretty far out in the water so these were all extremely cropped.
I rarely go the tiny beach next to downtown St. Pete. It’s usually pretty busy and there’s a big public swimming pool in the parking lot. I was in the area so I stopped and talk a quick walk in the sand. It was fairly early in the morning so there wasn’t anyone on the beach. The paved trail along the side of it was packed with people walking, jogging, biking and walking their dogs. It was a normal weekend rush hour traffic on the trails.
White pelicans who should have been north by now. They were still hanging around central Florida in May.
Ibis flyby.
The beautiful black neck swans were nesting. I don’t know if the babies hatched.
Nosy goose.
Grackle with a snackle.
A laughing gull couple far away from the beach.
An injured ibis. He was still able to fly away.
A turtle in the lake.
I took a quick walk around Lake Morton in Lakeland after my long walk at Circle B Bar Reserve before heading home.
The pretty white pelicans will be gone soon. They will be heading north for the summer. I’ve only seen one at this lake all winter until recently. They must be stopping over for a rest before their long flight home.
The resident swans are all priming and flirting. Several couples are already sitting on eggs.
It’s always fun seeing a cormorant trying to gulp down a big fish.
Wood duck reflection.
I think this is a male american goldfinch in his winter feathers. He was high up in the trees and didn’t sit still for a minute. I rarely see these here.
Great blue heron hopping around in the trees.
There were a lot of great blue heron nests high up in the trees. It was hard to see up there but this nest had two babies that were almost grown.
Green heron hanging around.
Most of these birds were not tagged. They might just be hanging out with the permanently injured birds for the winter.
This is a white morph great blue heron. I’ve never seen one here before and this is 2nd time I’ve ever seen one. He wasn’t tagged so I’m not sure if he is just stopping by for a quick visit.
A great egret trying to catch some minnows and coming up with a beak full of leaves.
I made my annual trip to Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park in early March. It’s a safe haven for permanently injured birds and other Florida animals. A lot of wild birds and ducks hang out there to get free food. Some come in to nest in the trees over the water. There’s always a lot to take pictures of at the park. Sometimes in nice not to have to run around in the woods looking for tiny birds high up in the trees. Sometimes it’s nice to just stand in one place and take lots of pictures.
Yes, I took pictures of white pelicans into the sun. I was standing on the dock over the big lake at Circle B Bar Reserve in January when I saw these white dots far across the lake. After taking a water and rest break, I looked up and saw a handful of the pelicans coming towards the dock. There must have been a thousand of them in the lake. Some flew high up and over the trees and some flew low just a short ways and dropped back in the water. The weird thing was how they were taking off in stages. Not the entire flock all at one time. They seemed to be moving slowly across the lake and feeding at the same time. It was cool to see but the lighting was bad since the sun was right behind them and bright. No clouds in sight.
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