Wild Front Yard

Apparently since I did not visit a lake this weekend to see the birds, they decided to come to me. XD







The house was really quiet then all of a sudden the birds started flipping out, then the dogs. When I got to the front room this flock of Ibis were scouring the yard for insects.





Eat up and be merry I say. I am not a huge fan of bugs myself.






It was pretty cool that they never flinched as I opened the front door to take these pictures. They just walked around and grabbed all the bugs they could find.

Lake Mirror Revisited

Our last visit to Lake Mirror was bitter sweet. There were a lot of birds around and I got some pretty nice shots but there was a little bit of sadness to go along with it. But lets start with the pretty and happy stuff shall we.

First is another panoramic of Lake Mirror from the other side of the lake.

Preeeeetty.

I was really fast on the draw with my camera to get this shot of an Anhinga swimming/fishing. They are quick!

At first I thought this was a GBH (Great Blue Heron), but it is way to small. I don't think it's a juvenile either because there is just something not right in it's shape. So I shoot this over to our resident wild bird expert, Sara, for the "What is it?" answer.

A beautiful Snowy Egret. My first sighting of one too. :D

And boy was it skittish! I actually got a shot of it flying away..

and flying back when I moved off.

Another shot of the mystery bird.

Another question for Sara, is it a Cormorant or an Anhinga?

The main reason we went back to Lake Mirror was to check up on the ducklings. When we found them my heart broke and it was everything John could to to keep me from rounding them most of them up and bringing them home.

The first thing I noticed was that we went from 20 ducklings to 11. :(

They were so hungry they ran for us begging for food. I noticed some scampered up the hill with ease and others, couldn't make it out of the water.

I moved closer to the shore line. I rarely tempt fate like this because I am a major klutz, but I needed to get a closer look.

You can't really see it here but we discovered that quite a few of the ducklings had lame/broken legs, including their mother.

Here you can see the one on the left has a bad leg. My heart was breaking watching him try and get food before the others gobbled it up.

As I tried to give as much food as I could to the ducklings a momma mallard showed up with her healthy little brood.

John went over to them with some food to keep as many of the birds over by him while I concentrated on feeding the hurt ducklings. If you look carefully you'll see a turtle getting in on the action.

These are the lake bad boys. These are the two male Muscovy Ducks that have been harassing and attacking the ducklings so that the mothers will come back into season. Apparently when Momma duck tried to intervene he went after her and broke her leg in the process.

Of course like every other town in America, our parks and lakes are under the control of gangs. The gull gang here is also partly responsible for the conditions of the ducklings. Their aggressive food theft has had them running over ducklings in a mad grab for bread.

They have totally taken over this "outlook" area. They just stared at me like I was totally intruding on their space. Which I was and they were totally unafraid of my presence. I got pretty darn close too.

So that was my sad, sad weekend at the lake. I know when we go back we are going to stop at the feed store right across the street and pick up some really good food for the ducklings.

Wild Backyard

Last week when I stepped out into the back yard there was a lizard party going on. There were Lizards everywhere so I stepped back inside to grab the camera and get a picture or 2. On my return most had scampered off, but this Anole hung around to say "Hello."

"Hello."

I was surprised to find his twin on the other side of the cage.

"Hello, have you seen my twin?"

There were also a pair of brown Anoles on the fence courting..well..beyond courting. I didn't take a picture because well...this isn't "Anoles Gone Wild" or anything.


It's been warming up down here, so the Anoles and birds have been all a flutter with their speed dating. When we stopped for gas this weekend this poor male Grackle had gotten chased off by another male with his woman. He squawked a bit and hopped off. Upon hitting the sunny black top she started doing a funny little goose step before flying away for cooler perches.

"Hot..Hot..HOT!"

Ah spring. ;)

Caught without my camera...again.

This happens far more often then I like, but while sitting on the back porch I saw this amazing little bird. It came and landed on the burn barrel and hopped and twitched its little head so much it should have just fallen off. It was brown with this amazing bronze-orange belly and a white stripe over it's eye. After it flew off I decided to try and find it via google, and I did!

A Carolina Wren. Isn't it beautiful? from the pictures I found their bellies very from a pale yellow to the bronze-orange that I saw. (This one is obviously more yellow) I am not sure if this differs between sexes like say cardinals, or if its just a variation from the norm.

So, I lob this over to our resident wild bird expert. Sara, what do you think?

Lake Mirror Part 2

Welcome back to part 2 of the Lake Mirror picture post. Now where was I?

Oh yea, I remember now.

Hubby and I were waling around the lake when we were honored with this ducky display.

A swimming V, classic. :D

Then when we stopped at a bench and John broke out the bread we found out that Ducks will kick Coot tush if they get too close to their perceived bready bits.

"Whaaaaaat!"


Lets move on to some massive cuteness. I'm telling you it's a cute over load! You've been warned.

What is this I see? A Muscovy Duck with something going on there.

A dirty yellow cotton cloud.. Must. Get. Closer.

It's.. it's.. BABY DUCKS! *Squeee!*

There are 20 baby ducks following Momma around. 20!! Thats a lot of baby ducks!

Here John is feeding the ducks, as you can see there are 2 Muscovy Ducks there. (The ones with the white heads and black bodies) The one closest to john is -not- the Momma.

I note this because we kept getting confused, and so did the chicks. When the not-the-momma duck waddled off, 4 baby ducks went with her, and she was none to happy to find them tailing her. She attacked them and this led to baby duck squeaks and and loud Momma quacks to help them scurry back to her side. (All were fine, just a bit upset until the were safe with momma again.)

Here John sits down and gets all Zen with the ducks. He had them eating out of his hand by the time he was done.

I'm not sure why but it seems that every time I turn on the video recorder John finds something interesting to talk about. Here he turns into Dr. John, Duck Obstetrician. XD



Enjoy!

Lake Mirror Part 1

Lake Mirror is the social hub of the artistic and free spirited folk here in Lakeland. Or so they say. Being that I don't do crowds I tend to not pay attention to any of the festivals they advertise, but they put a lot of effort into the area and it shows. I took quite a few pictures here so I am going to break this up into 2 separate posts.

First take a look at this place, it's really taken care of, unlike the other lakes we have been visiting. It was a really quiet Sunday, there was hardly anyone around when we got there.

We arrived just in time for the duck parade.:D

These ducks are called Indian Runners, and they look like walking bowling pins.

They also had some Ring Neck Ducks which allowed me to actually get a half way decent shot of this guy here. (Those eyes make me think his head is gonna start spinning around any moment now.)

His girlfriend was a bit more aloof.

This Great Blue Heron (GBH) flew over when he noticed us feeding the ducks. I would have had an awesome picture if it had not been for a pole getting in the way. Stupid pole!

GBH wading and snatching bread away from the ducks. This is the same GBH from the video I posted a few weeks ago.

One bonus for Lake Mirror is that the ducks and coots are acclimated to humans so we were mobbed by both. This allowed me to get pictures of some coots out of the water and show off those wild looking feet.

And now I will bring this picture post to it's feathery end.....

Get it? Get it? Feathery end....duck butt! Bwahahahahaha! I amuse me. ;)

Friday Picture Post

A few weekends ago we ventured out to a few different lakes in the area. We hit Lake Bonnie first. Lake bonnie is rather secluded, only one small area is for visitors with one small grill in dire need of maintenance and one rotting picnic table we didn't stay around for very long. While I was there though I did take a few pictures.

Lake Bonnie is bigger then most of the lakes around here, not the biggest of them but pretty darn big in it's own right.

A bird, possibly a coot, followed us at a distance. He seemed as curious about us as we were about him.

Then there was this guy, that looks kinda chicken like but swims and has a bright red beak, I have no clue what it is but I think it maybe coot related.

Ok, in the center of the picture there is a tiny bird. I have these guys all over my yard and have not a clue what they are. They make humming birds look like body builders, so I am guessing they are some sort of finch.

There were a bunch of trees bearing these pretty yellow flowers on them. I of course have no clue what kind of tree this is, so if anyone out there has an idea of what it is leave a note in the comments please.

Thats it for Lake Bonnie. I save the next lake for next week since there are a whole lot of pictures I'll probably break it up into multiple posts. Have a great weekend everyone!

Bonus Video

A 1 minute video of a GBH taken at Crystal Lake this past weekend. Enjoy!

Lake Morton...again

Remember when I said I took over 100 pictures at Lake Morton? Well here are a few more of them. ;)

(As usual, click picture to enbiggen)

We start our picture post with two quiet little Ibis. I know the white one is a White Ibis, the brown patchy one could be a molting chick though he looks a bit big and I am not sure if White Ibis are born white or not.

Two male Ring Neck Ducks and 2 American Coots. Those ducks are so pretty, next to wood ducks I think these guys are some of the prettiest ducks around.

A closer look at a male Ring Neck Duck. See, Pretty!

Mute Swan. This fella was less then a foot away, he just walked right up to me and you could actually hear him thump as he walked he was so darn big. This lasted a whole 30 seconds before....

Uh-oh! This black swan looks a little....

Ticked!!! Remember in the last post I mentioned that black swans were a bit territorial? Like urban guerrillas?

This is what I was talking about. Seriously, the Mute Swans are like 2x the size of the black ones yet the Black Swans bully them something fierce.

More swan fighting. This particular pair of Black Swans were on a rampage. Not very happy swans.

If Ring Necked Ducks are some of the prettiest, then the Muscovy Duck is one of the ugliest ducks ever. Sweet yes but Uuuuugly with a capital U. The Wood Stork behind it isn't to high on the pretty scale either.

This Great Blue Heron has no fear of people. I have a feeling Lots of visitors take his picture. All he does is watch and hold perfectly still.

GBH feathers have such an interesting texture. I have been keeping my eyes peeled for any fallen feathers so I can get a closer look at them.

Grey Swan, I -think- this is a young swan molting into a Black Swan, the red beak is defiantly Black Swan. I don't know if the Black Swans and the Mute Swans can inter-breed though, if they can this could be a cross of some kind.

As the sun began to set the gulls took to the air and bombarded the other birds, steaking the food that was being tossed to them by some human visitors.

Watching Gulls fly is really interesting. They hover and dive like they were trained by the sir force.

When that doesn't work they paddle around like ducks thinking if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. There's what I think is a Turn in there, the one with the pure black head.

It's been a long day, and post, So me and this little white goose are going to curl up and get a nap.