Around the apartment - Bahama Bay

The verandah at the back of the apartment overlooked some lawn, a hedge, and some rough ground, as well as a line of telegraph poles and wires. Overall not perhaps the prettiest view, but actually quite good for wildlife. I missed the armadillo Kay watched one morning, but we both watched the absolutely gorgeous swallow-tailed kite that floated by one day. No pictures - the flyscreen meant they weren't worth taking - but one of those memories that will stick. Probably the most graceful bird I've ever watched.
The Loggerhead shrike used the wires one day.
We saw these red shouldered hawks using one of the telegraph poles as a table for eating the lizards they were catching - and one that got away at the end.
One day the hawks were lower down, in the trees, and to my surprise one let me walk right underneath it as you can see. No need for the hard crop I used on the shrike for that one.
The lizard was at the front door one day.

More birds - Bahama Bay

The little pied-billed grebes were present on a couple of the ponds, but were seriously shy birds. When they dived they were under for quite a while, so this first shot was the result of a quick sprint 15 yards from cover, a dive to the ground and a short wait for it to pop up again. After a couple of shots it saw me and drifted further out. The second (with the one swimming a bit uphill!) was when I had been crouched down in my camo kit - reason yet to be disclosed - for about half an hour.
Next is a mourning dove - superficially like a collarless collared dove,
then we are into the scary bit of American birdwatching - sparrows and warblers. They have so many! I think this is a chipping sparrow .....

this a palm warbler ........
and a common yellowthroat.
Finally the bird I thought was the most amazingly coloured small bird I would see in Florida (I was wrong, but the male is still a real cracker). The male northern cardinal became a must-get shot. You could find them through the song, or more often their hawfinch like 'Tic', but getting close was more tricky. The female was a bit more obliging, but favoured heavier cover.
Eventually the male popped out. What a crazy colour that is. Could anything really be more striking?

Wait for the pics from Bok Gardens .........

Northern Mockingbird

Jane recently posted a piece about the mockingbird's lovely singing at her holiday house in the keys.http://urbanextension.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/to-spy-a-mockingbird/

It took me back to my childhood when We did 'To Kill a Mockingbird' as one of our 'O' level texts (for those newbies out there that was what we used to cal GCSE's!), and her comments echoed some of the sentiments in the text:

When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn't interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem, "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever hear Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "You're father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird."

There were a few around Bahama Bay, including a nesting pair I watched noisily drive a squirrel from their nest one day. Although the colours are shades of grey, I think they're quite photogenic in their own way. [Would have helped if I'd tidied up a couple - sensor dust, eh.]




On first glance I thought this was something different, with that highly curved bill, but it turned out to be across beaked mockingbird. It was one of a pair, so at least it's other partner thought it was good-looking. It kept adopting this fanned wing pose - don't know if there was a nest there and this was a display to me, or some other reason, but I left it in peace, rather than go digging around.