Florida Part 1

The first birds I saw in Florida were Brown Pelicans, an Osprey, a Laughing Gull, and Ring-billed Gulls. Also, there were Boat-Tailed Grackles and a Palm Warbler in a parking lot. The grackles turned out to be everywhere we went.
Ring-Billed Gull with Laughing Gull in the Background.Pelicans with a gull tail in the foreground.
All the gulls were interested in this bone.This is actually from Wakodahatchee Wetlands, but I didn't get a picture of the other Palm Warbler. More to come!

Florida Pictures Soon!

I had a great time in Florida, but I have lots of pictures to sort through and edit and convert. However, I'm on Spring Break, so I should have a post ready soon.

Woodcock/Owl Prowl

No usable pictures from this trip, since it was cold and grey, but I did see a Great Horned Owl on its nest, heard a Barred Owl, and saw and heard several Woodcocks, although it was extremely dark, and they were little more than moving shapes. They called quite often, however. I also saw and heard the Barred Owl at the bridge again this evening, and got a dark, blurry, unrecognizable cell phone picture of its back. I'm heading to Florida tomorrow, so I hope to have an exciting post full of great birds when I get back!

Forest Park Forever Beginner Bird Walk

Not too many species seen, but it was nice out finally, and there were many more people than usual.
Wood Ducks, male and female. It's hard to believe they're native; they're so exotic looking.
Canada Goose, common, but I thought it was a nice picture. Other species of note were a red-headed woodpecker, great blue heron, and cooper's hawk.
Song Sparrow. There were lots of these around, along with at least one American Tree Sparrow. This is more a testament to Canon's great cameras than about the bird walk. My dial had slipped, and I was shooting on the wrong mod at 1/640. They picture was way too light. However, I shoot in raw, and was able to correct that. The birds are too far away for it to be a graet shot, but I thought the comparison was interesting.Undoctored photo.
Corrected photo. Thank you Canon, and thanks for reading!

Barred Owl

Today my Grandfather and I biked down to the drainage creek in our neighborhood, and there were some birds moving around, so I went back to my house to get my binoculars. When I got back to the creek, we suddenly hear a Barred Owl calling its who cooks for you call from right over our heads, and another responding from upstream. It eventually poked its head out from a tree that had lost its top, and apparently had a hollow in the top. It then flew upstream, and started doing its jackal-laughing call. (That's how I would describe it.) They nested in a tree extending over our yard one year, but then our neighbors had to cut the tree down, so it is nice to see them again. I'll have a post up later about the Forest Park Forever Beginning Bird Walk I went on today.

Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary

I headed out to Riverlands this weekend, since it was around 40 degrees. Not at Riverlands. There was a cold wind that that illustrated the fact: It's always colder at RMBS. However, there were some great birds, including a kestrel with a meal, horned larks, Bald Eagles, American White Pelicans, unidentifiable ducks (mergansers of a sort and some possible goldeneyes), geese(greater white-fronted and canada) and gulls.Gulls. I'm going to say the smaller ones are ring-billed and the larger ones are herring. If you want to disagree, you're probably right.
I think this is a Ring-Billed Gull.I thought it was interesting that so many birds could be found close to an industrial area.
This one looks sort of like its winking.Bald Eagles are one of the big draws for this area. As you can see, there are several on the ice in the background.An adult one.You can't really tell, but this is a big flock of pelicans.Greater White-Fronted Geese.
Kestrel with snack. Good Birding!