Spring Shift & Jay Blanchard Park

    Here in central Florida, we're well into the spring season, and just starting to see hints of the hotter summer months not far ahead. It has been 7 months since Ru and I finished our 4 month job in Hawaii, and we are quite slow to get ourselves truly settled in. But we are making slow progress little by little. We weren't here last summer, so I am try to prep mentally for the hot humid yuckiness of June - Sept. Yea right, as if! I'll be staying indoors 99% of the time!

    My lack of motivation encompasses birding, except for enjoying the daily entertainment our backyard birds (and squirrels) provide us with.  When I try to sit outside in our screened lanai to read, I have a hard time ignoring the almost constant action!

    The smaller birds are nearly all gone..the pine warblers, the goldfinches, and the chipping sparrows. I did see a Carolina wren a couple days ago, first one after many weeks. The blue jays, our one red-bellied woodpecker pair, and the No. cardinals are here year-round....(it HAS been one year since we moved into our house!) We also have too many mourning doves...minus one as of yesterday, thanks to the "sharp-shinned hawk" that I posted about previously...having now seen it up closer, I think it's a  Cooper's hawk after all. (Sharp-shinned only winters here.) It scours our feeders regularly, unfortunately. We do have a newcomer, a brown thrasher! I had seen a few last spring in neighbors' yards but this is the first to hang out at our house...it seems to like the suet, which has become so popular it only lasts about 3 days! Yikes! Someone is snarfing under the coverage of night!

    We recently took a day trip to the Orlando area with our new friends/neighbors, starting with a visit to Jay Blanchard Park, where there is a paved biking trail that starts along a canal. While our friends biked, we strolled part of the canal and enjoyed seeing many shore birds....plus a gator...I definitely got a really good dose of birding that day! .......

Right off, a common moorhen near the canal's shore, puttering about...

There was also a mucky adult white ibis on the canal's edge....

Along with 4-5 immature white ibises.....

And ~ oh excitement! ~ a limpkin! A lifer! According to the Stokes field guide, found only in Florida....

There were some red-winged blackbirds around...that was a surprise since I haven't been seeing them anymore in our area....

We came to a spot where two swallow-tailed kites were circling around overhead...I managed an okay shot, which is a small miracle, as bad as I am at shooting moving "targets"...this was the first time I've seen them so close up. We saw some at quite a distance in S Florida last year.

We were sitting on a bench, watching a great blue heron flying low over the canal....

Peek-a-boo! The gator we'd seen several yards back, was still within sight on the opposite edge of the canal...As the heron flew over the gator, the gator lunged half-heartedly at the heron, totally missed...
Toto, weren't not in Kansas anymore...

Back near our resting spot...plenty of these little buggars in our own backyard...this one was looking for hand-outs...

As we headed back towards our car, an anhinga (immature or small/young male) came to shore right in front of us...look closely & you can see a string around its neck...

While attempting to get photos of a moseying little blue heron, we witnessed it capture and swallow a frog....whole...

Whaa fwaug-g-g?! Trying to look innocent....but what about the large lump in its throat? Oh yuck.

And the little blue heron continues hunting, like nothing happened...

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Back on the home front, here's the Cooper's hawk with the remains of its catch, below the feeders...ok there's only a wing, did it honestly eat the whole body, bones and all?! I discovered the miscreant upon return from a leisure bicycle ride....

Our newest "family" member, the brown thrasher...not a hermit thrush. Has white wing tips, golden eyes, and a long tail. It's getting over its camera shyness...As you can see below, it manipulates its tail out of the way. Sometimes it appears to not even have a tail.  Which reminds me, the tail-less mockingbird from last year is back and hanging in the back yard quite a bit now. Let's hope Mr. Cooper leaves it alone!

"Peanutbutter and... raisins?! Where's the chocolate?!"