Catch-Up Post

I’m going to post a few of my favorite shots from this last weekend and a few from a couple of weeks ago that I somehow missed.

Two weeks ago I was given a tip on a possible Tropical Kingbird in Western Palm Beach County.  I drove the hour out to the Glades Marina on Lake Okeechobee and spent a couple wonderful hours birding this fantastic area.  I had 20-25 species all within a half mile stretch around a lake and eventually found the Tropical Kingbird feeding very low over an adjacent canal.  It was very windy and I guess that’s why he was flycatching from lower perches.

Tropical Kingbird … This was a wonderful new county bird and one I have to thank my friend Brian Hope for alerting me to!

The same week that I had the Kingbird we had a fairly good cold front come through and bring in a few really cool birds.  Often a bird that is very common in one part of the country is a special treat for us in South Florida and the American Robin is one of them.  Some years go by and we may not see any Robins or at most a small handful but this year we had a flock of a couple hundred at Green Cay Wetlands for a little over a week.  Another great thing about seeing Robins is there is invariably Cedar Waxwings with them … another rare treat for us!!

American Robins … A real treat for South Floridians!

Before moving on to this past weekends highlights I was blessed to get a nice shot of one of our resident Bobcats.  This one has been named “Frank” due to his multiple colored eyes!

One of our local Bobcats!!

As I said in the last post I had a fabulous weekend (Tuesdays/Wednesday) and saw some species that I normally don’t record.  I was at Loxahatchee NWR and saw close to 60 species of birds and some of the highlights include a county first Blue Grosbeak, a beautiful male American Goldfinch, the pair of Great Horned Owl babies and quite a few Indigo Buntings.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Blue Grosbeak (female) … look at the size of her beak!

Great Horned Owlets … They are a little bit to far back for my lens but are fantastic looking through a scope!

Carolina Wren … One of the real “songsters” of the refuge!

I’m looking forward to a few more really good weekends as Spring migration should be ramping up any day now.  This will be the first Spring in a long time that I don’t travel somewhere else to bird so I am going to have to bird extra hard to try and get the 25-30 species of Warblers that I get when I go to Ohio or Texas.  Because I haven’t limited myself to my own county this year I will probably spend a few days at Fort Desoto, Bill Baggs and some of the other migrant traps.

Thank you all so much for visiting!!!

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