This picture epitomizes our trip. An Ibis, an Alligator and a Purple Gallinue all sharing the same swamp with us and getting along great!
We were in Ft. Lauderdale on the Friday night of spring break. Party on our floor kept us up until about 4.
We took pictures of 5 courthouses, but I gotta admit, I was primarily there for the birds.
Anhinga's!
Note the blue around the eyes. Birds develop blue around the bare eyes when they are breeding.
The beautiful Great Blue Heron's were very busy building nests.
Some of the Heron's were really active in feeding. This one had a tough time choking down a pretty big fish.
This Barred Owl was not too concerned about us. Nor were the Burrowing Owls in this subdivision near the public library in Cape Coral.
I always love seeing the Pelican's whenever we are at the beach.
The Birds of Prey are especially numerous in Florida.
The Red Shouldered Hawk
The Osprey, with many nests on top of poles in the open.
Of course the Vultures. This Turkey Vulture is eating a wild Hog out in the swamp.
The Crested Caracara is really beautiful with its orange and blue beak and dark crest. This one had just found a grub in the dirt.
The endangered Snail Kite is found only in the Everglade swamps, and in this picture we caught him hauling a snail out of the mud.
Lot's of shorebirds.
Like this Lesser Yellowlegs. Lesser only because it is somewhat smaller than its cousin the Greater Yellowlegs.
On some beaches, like here at Tigertail in Naples had thousands of "peeps".
The Glossy Ibis is one of the truly beautiful residents of Florida.
This little "Hooded Warbler" must have been lost. They are normally found much further north, not here on the beach!
The Fulvous Whistling Duck is also somewhat rare.
As is this Black Bellied Whistling Duck.
One of the most beautiful of all the birds is the cousin of the Coot, the Purple Gallinue.
Equally beautiful is the Painted Bundting.
And of course it is always fun to see the Pileated Woodpecker.
These fish were new to me. Chuong tells me they were common in Vietnam. They defend their young in these holes that they dig with their tails. Apparently they have the ability to suck the minnow's into their mouths if danger appears.
I took about 17,000 pictures on this trip, but didn't get near enough of the beautiful flowers.
There were many species of turtles. Not sure what the deal is with the one on the left!
We saw a number of lighthouses.
We even stopped at Edison's winter home in Ft. Meyers. He had a beautiful estate with great gardens. Paula and Jean are under a huge Kapok tree.
I didn't get a picture of Paula in her scuba gear. But she was really happy that she had done the dive!
Peace, Out.
4 comments:
I hope people who check this out will at least say Hello . Rich doesn't think anybody leven takes a look. Paula
These are by far some of your best photos. Kenni and I are excited to be able to do something like that someday. I'm serious about submitting some photos to national geographic, or at least some birding magazine.
It's true both of you are so good at commenting on our blog I'll try to drop a comment right away.
Very cool, the day you put them up Brig made sure I came to your site to check out the birds. And those fish are amazing!
hey, I comment! Seriously, you guys went to south florida for spring break? What a bunch of young uns you are! I love it. So in lieu of my comment here, you have to comment on my blog when I post about my trip to Ukraine. Which will be....eventually.
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