Anhinga

I was going through some photos yesterday when I realized there was a couple of photos from my recent trip to Orlando that I intended to put into a blog post, but somehow forgot to. I am fixing that now. These pictures are from Orlando Wetlands Park.

Anhinga are fairly common in Florida. You often see them perched somewhere sunning themselves to dry their feathers. When it is time to eat, they swim under water to catch their food. Their body remains underwater when they surface for air, leaving only their long neck and head sticking out of the water.

Green Heron

I am going to make this my last post related to my trip to Orlando. This is, I think, the last decent photo in the bunch. I may get some more photos in locally in the next couple of weeks, but the next big thing for me will be the 2007 ABA Convention in Lafayette Louisiana.

Back to this post. About halfway through the Black Point Wildlife Drive in Merritt Island NWR, I found this Green Heron perched on a drain looking for his lunch. I got a couple pictures of him before I spooked him to a nearby bush. Once in the bush, he still was very photogenic.

If you look at these pictures and wonder "Why is this bird called a 'Green' Heron?", then it would help you to know that there can be a patch of green on his back which you cannot see in these two pictures. In fact, they are sometimes called "Green Backed Heron". You may also see hints of green in his black cap and in his wings.

Sora

You don't see a Sora everyday.

I am still trudging through the photos that I took two weekends ago in the Orlando area. The last group of photos was actually not in Orlando, but near Titusville and Cape Canaveral, within Merritt Island NWR. If you like seeing wildlife, and you are visiting the eastern coast of Florida near Jacksonville or Orlando, then you should check out Merritt Island NWR. Its primary access to the public is the Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, where you drive through the park.

While I was in Merritt Island NWR I saw lots of birds. I pulled my car over at one point so that I could take a look at some distant birds via my spotting scope when I heard an odd noise behind me in the underbrush on the other side of the drive. I left my scope and walked across the road so that I could find the source of that noise, and discovered a Sora creeping about in the bushes.

I was very excited to actually see a Sora. They are usually a bird that you only hear calling because their preferred habitat is wetlands with lots of vegetation. I was even more excited to have my camera in hand with the correct lens. Here are a few photos. Once you can tell his legs apart from the vegetation, be sure to appreciate his long toes.

Aggressive Osprey

After visiting both Split Oak Mitigation Forest and Moss Park, I made a trip to Tibet-Butler Preserve. This is a chunk of land on the side of a lake. All other sides of the lake are being developed into subdivisions.

One trail within the Tibet-Butler Preserve takes you to the edge of the lake where you might get a glimpse of Ospreys. I managed to see not only an Osprey, but an Osprey that was, for whatever reason, showing some aggression towards an Anhinga.

I do not have a picture of the "victim" Anhinga prior to the incident, but he was perched at the top of a tree sunning himself. This picture of a different Anhinga shows what I mean.



This is a picture of the aggressor. In this case it is the Osprey that decided to dive-bomb the Anhinga perched at the top of a tree.



The result was captured in this picture. The poor Anhinga was doing everything it could to not fall all the way to the ground or swamp or whatever was at the bottom of the tree.



There was a happy ending. The Anhinga did manage to pull itself back up to a perched position. I just wish I had captured the impact where the Osprey actually knocked the Anhinga from its original perch.

Sandhill Crane

After I finished with Split Oak Mitigation Forest, I grabbed some lunch and sat in Moss Park while I ate. In the park there were two Sandhill Cranes hanging around. Sandhill Cranes are large birds. They can be nearly 4 feet tall. And their call is a very loud trumpeting sound.

Gobble Gobble

As I mentioned in my post about Split Oak Mitigation Forest, it was a chilly blustery day. There were a few birds to be seen, but it was not super birdy. As soon as I arrived, however, I did manage to see one of the species that are fairly common in the park: Wild Turkeys. There were three of them moving fairly quickly through a field. When they saw me, so they moved even faster.

Three Waders

This is my last post containing pictures from my recent trip to Orlando Wetlands Park. The pictures are of three different wading birds: Snowy Egret, Little Blue Heron and Great Egret (top to bottom).

Common Moorhen

Yet another blog entry from my visit to Orlando Wetlands Park. This is a pair of Common Moorhen. When I see their beak, I think of candy corn.

Blue-winged Teal

More pictures from Orlando Wetlands Park. Here are a couple shots of a Blue-winged Teal stretching his wings. The pictures make it fairly obvious how the species got its name. The black bird in the front is an American Coot. The bird at the back that is obscured is a female Blue-winged Teal.

White Ibis

I figure that I will deal with my pictures and blog posts from the Florida trip by attrition. Each night that I am at home I clean up a few pictures and, maybe, make a blog post with some of the better pictures.

Tonight I have more from Orlando Wetlands Park. This time the subject of choice is White Ibis. Here are three pictures: one wading, one in a tree and one in flight.

Gators

Last weekend I was in the Orlando Florida area. I am still trying to make time to go through all the pictures I took and hide the junk. The stuff left over after that process will be ideal candidates for a few blog posts.

I did finish going through the pictures that I took at Orlando Wetlands Park, but I only have time for one blog post this evening. The subject matter of choice for this one post is alligators. They were easily seen as you walked through the park. Here are three:

Merritt Island NWR

Today I drove out to Titusville and visited Merritt Island NWR. Specifically, I drove the Black Point Wildlife Drive. This is a one-way gravel road that winds through the reserve. This is the second time I have visited Merritt Island. Tammy and I visited in January 2006. This is a fantastic bird watching destination. I highly recommend it to anyone in the vicinity.

The refuge was quite active today. There were lots of birds to be seen as well as lots of humans driving their cars on the wildlife loop. I guess it is very nice that the refuge is so accessible (as long as you have a car), but it can get a tad annoying always having to make sure your car is out of the way in the event that you want to stop and look at something (and I stop frequently). It seems like there is always someone behind you who wants to go faster, or get by you. But I can deal with that. The bird watching opportunities are just too many to let the other people bother you. Everyone else seemed to have good manners and I think I was always out of the way when I stopped to gawk at some bird.

I took lots of pictures. There were plenty of options to capture some bird in a picture. Since I have not been able to store any of the pictures I have already taken on this trip (they are all still on my memory card), I actually had to search through the pictures I had already taken to find and delete some garbage pictures (those that were obviously out of focus) to make room. At the end of the day, I had a completely full memory card. I think there are somewhere between 400 and 500 pictures on that card. When I get back home, I will have lots of work to do getting all those pictures stored away in their proper place. And once that is done I will post some of the pictures I like the best to this blog.

Split Oak Forest Mitigation Park

Today I visited Split Oak Forest Mitigation Park, south east of Orlando. The cold front that rolled through yesterday brought a significant change in temperatures. This morning, when I got to the park, it was in the low 50's and very windy. This was not really cold to me, but it was cold according to the locals. The wind made it feel even colder.

The cold and the wind, I think, kept the birds down. Either that, or Split Oak Forest Mitigation Park is just not that birdy to begin with. It was an interesting park. On the plus side, it was large. Several miles of trails wind through it and I hardly saw any other people while I was there. On the other hand, the habitat seemed somewhat monotonous. I only explored the southern part of the park, which excluded a section that might have had different habitat (I think). But in the part that I did explore, it was pretty much the same habitat except with varying amounts of time since there was a controlled burn. In terms of birds, there were a good number of birds of prey to be seen, and occasionally there were pockets of songbirds flitting about.

When I got too hungry to explore anymore, I headed out, grabbed some food, and then checked out a couple more parks. First, I ate my lunch in a place called Moss Park. This was not the type of park I am interested in. It was much more a place for families to come and picnic and grill and swim and fish, than a wildlife reserve. On the other hand, there were a pair of Sandhill Cranes here that seemed fairly tolerant of humans. I suspect they are getting food handouts, which is bad, but they let me get fairly close for some pictures, which is cool (they may even be resident...the link I included above includes a photo of a pair of Sandhill Cranes). On the odd side: the park charges you $1 to get in, and insists on giving you a receipt for that $1 entry fee. I wonder how much money it costs per person to print those receipts, buy the paper and ink the receipts are printed on, and to keep the machine that prints them in good working order?

Next I visited Tibet-Butler Preserve. This is a smallish park on a lake that is otherwise getting houses built all the way around it. It is a nice park. There is an interesting visitor center, and several trails to walk (with more on the way). There were not tons of birds, but I suspect that condition was more because of the time of day (mid-afternoon) than something that generally affects the park. At the edge of the park next to the lake, I saw an Osprey nearly knock an Anhinga out of a tree. I even have before and after photos, but I did miss the actual point of contact between the two birds.

Sigh

Okay. I was so excited earlier today when I used my fancy super-special technical genius to watch the weather radar to avoid getting soaked and electrocuted. All without any wires, inside my rental car, in the parking lot of the Orlando Wetlands Park.

I waited the rain out and then spent about three hours in the park. My arms are sunburned. I saw lots of interesting birds and took lots of pictures.

So tonight I planned on getting those pictures onto the computer so that I could take a closer look at them. Maybe even upload them to Phanfare and put a few in a blog post.

One problem. This damn work PC has no way of reading the memory card that my camera uses. No pictures to look at until I get home.

Sigh.

Wireless in Christmas

I am in Orlando for a work related conference. I have arrived, however, early enough to get a little birdwatching done. I flew into Orlando this morning and first thing headed in the direction of Orlando Wetlands Park. This park is actually located to the east of Orlando in a little town called Christmas.

Today is not a wonderfully sunny day. The wind is blowing and storm clouds are rolling by above me. There is a reasonable chance of rain, and the last thing I want to do is get caught out in this park when the rain starts, or worse, during a thunderstorm.

Since I am here in Orlando for work, I have my work laptop and an "aircard" that let's me access the Internet via Verizon's cellular network. So, at the moment, I am writing this blog post from the air conditioned comfort of my rental car, while I sit in the parking lot of the park. In another browser window I have the new interactive weather map from weather.com open and repeatedly animating the radar image across the Orlando area. I probably have an hour to wait before the rain comes and goes. Then I think I will be in the clear. Later tonight, if all goes well, I will post some pictures. At a minimum I will edit this post to include some links for the places & names I referenced above.