Dermot Breen's Blog: little blue heron

Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Florida 16th November 2012

Visited Fort De Soto Park and Honeymoon Island State Park both West of Tampa today. Again no sign of the large numbers of shorebirds that alot of the site guides go on about. However I did finally manage to catch up with Yellow-crowned Night Heron. At least a dozen along the causeway before De Soto. Don't know where they had been hiding up until now. This proved to be my only tick of the day, it was getting a little dry for ticks at this stage. I'll let the pics speak for themselves.

Adult Little Blue Heron

Juvenile Little Blue Heron

Roseate Spoonbill

First-winter Laughing Gull

First-winter American Herring Gull

Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk

Juvenile and adult Brown Pelicans

Sub-adult Brown Pelican

Common Ground-Dove

Northern Mockingbird

Great Blue Heron

Adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Sub-adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Black-hooded Parakeet

Redheads, Ring-necked Ducks and Shovelers

Short-billed Dowitcher

Least Sandpiper

Sanderling

Turnstone

Female Brown-headed Cowbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Black Skimmer

Black Skimmers

Cabot's Tern with Black Skimmers

Second-winter American Herring Gull

Near adult American Herring Gull

Royal & Sandwich Terns, Black Skimmers and Laughing Gull.

Forster's Tern

Adult male Downy Woodpecker

Nine-banded Armadillo

US Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk

You can say that again!

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Florida 15th November 2012

Made my way further North from Fort Myers up to St. Petersburg near Tampa. I took a quick look again at Little Estero Lagoon in the hope for Yellow-crowned Night Heron, hoping that they would be more active first thing at dawn but again no sign. More good views of Reddish Egrets. I had a very distant Black Skimmer at least a mile up along the beach. By the time I managed to drive up it was gone but I did have two nice close frigatebirds (no camera) and a flock of about 100 Knots. At least 24 of these were colour ringed, an amazing percentage. Most had been ringed in Florida and a few in South Carolina going back as far as 2006. None have been resighted further North than New Jersey. All had lime green flags.
I still hadn't seen any Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, one of the rarest woodpecker species found in the States. I had already tried at least two reserves of open longleaf pine woodland and only managed a very brief view of a black and white woodpecker. North of Fort Myers at Cecil M. Webb State Wildlife Management Area I managed to connect with a pair which gave good views. The species is intensively managed. The forest floor is burnt every few years to keep it open as would have naturally happened historically. All birds are "banded" and single males are often translocated to area containing single females. The nest trees are marked by white circles at their bases. I also had untickable views of a Bachmanns Sparrow here. This is another speciality of dry pine woodland with saw-palmetto. They can be difficult to pick up when not singing in the Spring time.
I finished up the day around the Celery Fields/Ackerman Park. This was a small area that I nearly picked at random from the guidebook as I happened to be making my way up to Tampa at the time. This was an excellent example of how good some of these smaller lesser well known spots compared to the larger, better known sites. There was an excellent line up of waterbirds here including my best views of Roseate Spoonbill, they had all been a little distant up until this. Some nice views of Lesser Scaup and Ring-necked Duck also but the light conditions made it difficult for photography.