Memorial Day Weekend - 2020

So far, it’s been a cloudy/rainy day weekend for the island. No complaints, though, since we really need the rain right now. A week ago, I met a friend on the beach for a short walk and an outside visit, instead of our usual breakfast visit. It was a beautiful and warm day!

Any day that you can walk on the beach and see dolphins playing in the surf, it’s a great day!

This gator looked to be about 7 or 8 feet long and was quietly slithering through the water along Indigo Trail at Ding on Saturday.

Gators are so prehistoric looking. A good example is the gator’s tail

I snapped the photo below just to show the Pileated Woodpecker working away on the pole under the Osprey nest. If the woodpeckers keep it up, they make a hole through the pole one day!

This Tri-Colored Heron is almost rid of all the brown feathers of its youth.

A male Anhinga was drying his wings and then a female landed on a limb nearby.

I love the mating plumage on the Tri-Colored Heron.

As is the way with nature, another Yellow-Crowned Night Heron nest disappeared from near the walkway at Indigo Trail. Most likely, it fell into the water after some wind/rain. That’s the second one this season. The one below appears a little more secure and has at least 2 babies in it. I couldn’t get a good shot of their faces, but you can see their wild punk hair underneath the parent.

The nest below is very near the trail and looks strong. If you look near the bird’s legs, you can sort of see the punk hair on the babies. They must have already been fed and were napping.

These common gallinules seem to be getting enough to eat. They were very plump and healthy looking. I get a kick our of their candy corn noses.

It’s the time of year that we get to see a lot more pink along Wildlife Drive! The photographers are always lined up to try to catch photos of them taking off in flight. While we were there, they were mostly tucked in for a nap or preening.

And as a bonus, a Swallow-Tailed Kite hovered above with his breakfast of a lizard. Lots of people snapping photos of this one!

A Magnificent Frigatebird even coasted nearby. With a wingspan is 7 to 8 feet, they are aptly named!

Back at home, this huge bark scorpion was a bit frightful. Normally, we find them dead, but this one was very much alive.

Mother's Day Weekend - 2020

The yellow-crowned night heron Moms were mostly hunkered down and social distancing yesterday morning at Ding.

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers!

If another bird even thought about coming close, they were on high alert!

Plenty of ruffled feathers to go around, too!

The tri-colored heron below had to dodge a gator. And, of course, I missed getting that pic! I love the mating plumage colors.

On the way to find a less aware breakfast!

The young tri-colored heron below was sitting in the perfect light. It looks so different from the tri-colored heron with the mating plumage colors that the gator had been after.

I think this is the first photo I’ve gotten of a black-bellied plover.

Cool morning and a Gator

We had a nice cool morning, with humidity that was lower than it’s been recently. It’s so nice when the day starts out like that. So, off to Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge to check on nests and take some photos!

It appears that nest building is a never ending job. Most of the birds were settled into their nests, but we saw a couple at work.

I hope this little green heron is looking for a good place to build a nest.

This little Killdeer blended into the foliage very well.

These two ospreys were making a ton of noise

Maybe they were warning the egrets overhead!

We were treated to a gator swimming in front of us along Wildlife Drive. This first photo is almost an optical illusion. The gator appears to be “extremely” long. It was a pretty big gator, but not as big as this photo makes it look.

I took a couple of quick videos of the gator on the move that I’ve linked below. However, the lady standing beside me took a much better video. You can find it on her Instagram at @michialeschneider.

Then, back home where I found a woodpecker feeding what sounded like several babies in a nest in my neighbor’s back yard.

Every now and then, you just have to take a butterfly photo or two!

Too bad this isn’t scratch and sniff. Frangipanni blooms smell so good.

One of the eagles will occasionally visit the nest. Who knows if the tree will still be standing at the end of the year when it is nesting season, again? We can hope it will be there and the pair will give it another try.

Heron Nests and Spoonbills

I had a small window of time this morning to take a drive through Ding. We had rain Saturday morning and also this morning. We had almost 2 inches of rain at our house over the weekend! YAY!!! We really needed it for our crunchy grass!

There are several Yellow-Crowned Night Heron nests on the Indigo Trail. We were only able to see the eggs in one of the nests, though.

We had a fly-by from some of the Yellow-Crowned Night Herons. The photo below is not cropped. It was just that close!

Then, moving on down Wildlife Drive. I always get excited when I see pink feathers in the distance! The Roseate Spoonbill below had dark pink and also the orange feathers, which means it is not a young bird.

I love the Little Blue Heron in the white phase, especially when the blue feathers are showing up.

For the most part, this group of Roseate Spoonbills were tucked in and waiting for the rain. I took a quick video of this one preening before it tucked in, too.