With plenty of indoor time available due to Tropical Storm Colin and a persistent stormy weather pattern this past week in Southwest Florida, I made flashbacks of June visits to five different wildlife venues going back to 2011. The Ruddy Turnstone above (image 1) was photographed at Little Estero Lagoon in […]
Tag: Roseate Spoonbill
Orlando Wetlands Park, 2/2/2014
What a fantastic morning at Orlando Wetlands Park! The area was just filled with birds. Of course, top on my list was seeing a Vermilion Flycatcher. It was right where has been–in the cypress trees in cell #17. But the area was also filled with other birds. Lots of Blue-winged Teal and Green-winged Teal, as […]
Viera Wetlands, 1/18/2014
Yesterday I made it out to Viera Wetlands for a little bit during the afternoon. I much prefer to go in the morning, but even though family commitments kept me home in the morning, afternoon birding proved to be all that I’d hoped. My biggest goal was to see an Ash-throated Flycatcher that’s been seen […]
BioLab Road on Merritt Island
I found all the normal wading birds and shorebirds on Bio Lab Rd today. Wading bird highlights were the normal herons and egrets, both ibises, and Roseate Spoonbills. We also had a fair share of Stilt Sandpipers, both Dowitchers, both Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Plovers, and Least, Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers. I also found a small flock […]
Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja), Florida’s iconic wading bird.
Striking, beautiful, bizarre, fascinating – all are adjectives used to describe Florida‘s iconic Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja). The pink color of it’s feathers is diet-derived, from carotinoid pigments. Spoonbills wade through the shallows, swishing their spoon shaped bills from side to side…feeding on crustaceans, aquatic insects, frogs, newts and small fish. Hunted almost to extinction […]
Black-necked Stilt Walking
On Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, at the same pool where we had seen the Tricolored Herons, Reddish Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills and Willets in my previous posts, we also found several Black-necked Stilts. Several walked pretty close by while we were parked. These birds can be a little bit of a challenge to photograph–the problem is they […]
Roseate Spoonbill Landing
Yesterday my father and I went out to Merritt Island. We saw nothing terribly unusual (we went in part to find a Neotropic Cormorant that was seen the day before, but we never located it), but there were several photographic moments. We went first to Black Point Wildlife Drive, and the lighting was pretty good. […]
Merritt Island NWR, 3/30/2013
This morning I spent the morning at Merrit Island NWR. I first went to Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, and that was pretty fun. The biggest highlights were seeing several American Avocets in breeding plumage and my first Eastern Kingbird of the year. The Eastern Kingbird was right near the restrooms, where I seem to find them […]