Merry Christmas 2019

A drive through Ding on Christmas Eve yielded lots of photos of egrets squawking and vying for small fish in the creek alongside Wildlife Drive. As a result, I took far too many photos and had a hard time narrowing it down to thirty or so pics, many of which are similar.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

My son was taking some video while I was snapping away with my camera. You can hear the squawking in the background.

Waiting for a snack . . .

And, there it is!!

Reflections . . .

More video and lots of squawking

Sometimes, you just need to shake it off and move on!

My son caught the same shaking-off sequence on video. If you listen, you can hear my camera clicking away.

Here’s lookin’ at you, kid . . . Now, move along!

Rainy weekend

The weather hasn’t been the best in Southwest Florida this weekend. It rained all night Saturday night and rain is predicted all day today. It’s hard to complain when the temps are in the 60’s and 70’s though.

I was only able to get a couple of photos at Ding yesterday morning. The Tri-Colored Heron below was in the perfect light.

When you stand out among your peers . . .

In the early morning light this week, one of the eagles was sitting on a dead tree near the nest. I’m holding out a small bit of hope that they are actually sitting on an egg in the nest. As recently as a week ago, I saw both eagles leave the nest, but since then, there always seems to be one sitting down in the nest. Time will tell.

Hopefully, the weather clears up and the low tides this week will provide some great photo ops. Just in case this is my last post before Christmas, here’s wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas!

Bird Count Saturday

We started the weekend with a rainy Saturday morning to handle our part of the annual bird count. Same as last year, my husband and I were in charge of counting birds in our neighborhood. It was a very different count this year. I assume our low count was due to the rainy weather.

We took a quick drive through Ding before the rain started. The only photos that I was able to get were at the entrance on the Indigo Trail. There was a gathering of birds squawking and flitting around the creek.

Below are a few photos from our yard this week

We had the last full moon of 2019 this week

Blue skies and white birds

It was an absolutely beautiful day with blue skies and lots of white birds. It’s always a great combination when the white birds pretend to be Christmas tree toppers.

I’ll save the sad news for the end of the blog.

Don’t you hate when you are out in public and you have bed head?

The Tri-Colored Heron below was almost too close to get a photo

If the Great Egrets are the tree toppers, this tree full of Little Blue Herons are the pretty ornaments.

Ok, lady, are we done yet?

When you step to the beat of your own drum . . .

Some bird watchers along Wildlife Drive pointed out a Yellow Throated Warbler. The little birds are so hard to photograph since they flit around so quickly. I barely had time to catch a quick snapshot. You can see it in the middle of the photo, facing downward.

Now for the sad news. The photo below was taken earlier in the week, with the eagles continuing to work on the nest while sitting on it, too. Later in the week, I would see both eagles on the nest at times, but at times I could not see either one sitting on the nest. I had hoped that it was just sitting where I couldn’t see it. However, our friend called me this morning while we were on the way to Ding and said that the nest was full of crows that were destroying the nest. So, either the eagles were just playing house, or they had an egg that wasn’t viable. Either way, it doesn’t look as if we will have baby eaglets in this nest this year.