A Few Pics

Friday, March 1st

Did a little local birding the past couple of days

A somewhat downy and sleepy 

Great Horned Owlet

Seems that springtime is carrying on.  Many nesting birds.  Observed a Snail Kite, yesterday, carrying nesting materials, while some birds like Bald Eagles and Great Horned Owl babies will be fledging soon.

Wildflowers are blooming and butterflies and dragonflies are evident as they flutter and zoom about on these warming days.

Pearl Crescent Butterfly

Appears to be a Krider's Red-tailed Hawk seen along Blumberg Road in Hendry County

Brown Cuban Anole

An invasive and dominate species

replacing the native green anole

Another Brown Cuban Anole.  My first inclination was to identify it as another invasive lizard, the Brown Basilisk, because of the crests, which I learned are called a roach.

 I don't recall seeing a specimen displaying such a large roach

Prairie Warbler. 

Warblers have been a very difficult birds to photo as they don't tend to pose. 

House Sparrow. A while ago we called them English Sparrows. Not sure why the name change.  

They brought over here from England

Monk Parakeets can be found at the baseball fields on Pelican Boulevard in Cape Coral

Palm Warbler. Some are starting to show more of their breeding colors

 as spring migration approaches

Prairie Warbler

Six-Mile Cypress Slough

Lately I have been trying to bird Six-Mile Cypress Slough very early on Sunday mornings. Its very quite and the parking area can be very birdy with warblers, vireos and woodpeckers. Last week I had good looks at Prairie Warblers and a Hairy Woodpecker, which gave me a total January count of 171 birds. I am also keen to locate the resident wintering Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, which can be usually be found around the parking area, but what I'd really like to relocate is the male Black-Throated Green Warbler that was also wintering here. It has often been observed in mixed flocks and often near to the Green House in the early morning. I had briefly seen it back along the boardwalk back in December and later heard it as well. But so far I have not been able to find it. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has recently sited the bird.
Today I arrived about 8:00am to an empty parking area and found it not to be very birdy at all. Did find a couple of Yellow-Rumped Warblers and a Prairie Warble, but not much else. So I took a short walk out along the boardwalk. Still pretty quite. Did find a Black-Crowned and a Yellow-Crowned Nightheron though.
The most interesting sighting was a pair of waterfowl I observed from the balcony of the Green House. They were torpedo-shaped and very rapid in their flight. They circled the area once and took off. My immediate thought was that they were a pair of Common Loon as one was a plain brown and the other, also, had a plain brown body and a dark head and neck. But that would mean that the male had already mottled into his breeding colors. Not totally sure, but my guess is that it is too early. So what I have decided on was we had a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers flyby.
Later in the day I was surprised to find a squawking Monk Parakeet wiring-sitting in my backyard. He did not stay long, maybe because my feeder needs filled. This has been his second visit that I am aware of.