Babcock-Webb Day 2

Babcock-Webb WMA is so close to Connie's sister's house that I can't resist spending the morning there. There have been Snail Kites reported at the lake for the past few months so I thought I would try to see them. Spoiler alert: I dipped 2 days in a row. But I did manage to have a great time anyway. Day 2 started with heavy fog. This Red-shouldered Hawk was none-too-happy with it.

Foggy Morning

The park's habitat is a mix of open pine forests and shallow swamps which you can see in the above photo. The shallow marshes support tons of herons and egrets. Maybe I'm becoming a photo snob but I rarely take photos of Great-blue Herons because they are usually in boring poses and and pretty easy to photograph. That said, I took a few on Day 2. This one just because the bird was posing with such an elongated neck.

Great Blue Heron

And this one because the bird bit off more than he could chew. Literally, he spent 10 minutes figuring out how to swallow that huge fish. I didn't stay around to see if he succeeded.

Heron with a mouthful

I also usually don't photograph Great Egrets either. Not because they are boring but because they are very difficult to photograph. The white bird is usually over-exposed. To compensate, you end up making the rest of the photo dark. Today's fog was a perfect opportunity to get a good one. Fog flattens out the light so that the exposure can be good for the bird and the background too.

Great Egret

The Great Egret was crafty too. He was following a juvenile White Ibis along the edge of the water. Presumably waiting for the Ibis to stir up the fish for the Egret to have an easy meal. Juvenile White Ibis are not white. They are mottled so that they blend into the environment more. Here is the one that the Egret was following.

Juvenile White Ibis

The pine forests are great habitat for some species of warblers including well, Pine Warblers. I would come across flocks of a few dozen at a time. A few posed nicely. This guy was low in the grass.

Pine Warbler

This guy was low in a bush. 

Pine Warbler

This juvenile Pine Warbler followed Dad bush by bush, tree by tree. I guess he's not ready to go it alone.

Juvenile Pine Warbler

This Pine Warbler was acting like a Palm Warbler in the palm tree.

Pine Warbler in a palm

It wasn't all about birds at the park. I also saw a few alligators. This was the biggest - probably 7 or 8 feet long. Funny that he hustled into the water when he saw Peanut on the bank. Sissy.

Big Daddy Gator

 I found this water snake sunning himself after the fog cleared.

Water snake

I have one more story to share another day.

Babcock-Webb Again

Connie and I have this nasty habit of bringing cold weather to Florida when we visit. Makes it difficult to plan outings on the boat or other outdoor activities. On this trip, I ended up at Babcock-Webb National Wildlife Refuge a few times in the early morning even though it was pretty cold. I was really lucky to find a few interesting birds and get some photos starting with these VERY accommodating Limpkins. Connie and I first saw a Limpkin 25 years ago near Orlando. They are usually very secretive wading in dark places. Notice how bland their plumage is to hide them in the marsh and the swamps. This one seemed quite comfortable in the sunlight. He was even squawking loudly.

Limpkin

 After a while, he sauntered across the road like he owned it.

Limpkin

I found another one in a pond right at the park entrance. This one was more interested in finding a meal than worrying about me.

Limpkin

I also had good luck with a few other birds along a pretty deserted gravel road in the park. This juvenile Black-crowned Nightheron was trying to blend in but I found him anyway.

Black-crowned Nightheron

This Boat-tailed Grackle was grackling away.

Boat-tailed Grackle

This Green Heron posed for a long time and didn't care that I was practically standing right underneath the tree. They usually skiddadle as soon as they see you.

Green Heron

The best find of the day was watching 2 Red-headed Woodpeckers grabbing acorns from an Oak tree above my head. They also ignored me as I stood directly under the tree. This one flew into the same Pine tree as the heron. I guess he didn't want to be left out of the photo shoot. You can clearly see why this species is the owner of the name "Red-headed".

Red-headed Woodpecker

On the way out, I re-found the Purple Gallinule family feeding in the Alligator weed. This time, I got better photos. Check out those giant yellow feet. I have no idea how they navigate on the tiny stems.

Purple Gallinule

The juvenile struck a nice pose too. He navigated up in the weeds as if he has been doing it for years.

Juvenile Purple Gallinule

We killed some time with bird friends at the house too. More on that later.

Gone Fishin'

There's a saying - It's called "Fishing", not "Catching" because most of the time you go fishing you don't actually catch anything. Then, there are those rare days when it seems like every time you put your line in, you catch a fish so it really could be called catching. 

That's how it was on Saturday. Harvey and I went out early to see what we could find. Fish were being caught right and left. Fish were being caught so often that it was hard to keep up with who was catching what. It started with this juvenile Black-crowned Nightheron catching an eel in shallow water. 

Junior with an eel

After some time, Mom or Dad got into the action too and caught another eel. That'll show Junior. 

Adult with eel

All told, I watched Junior slurp down 4 eels in a matter of 15 minutes.

Then the Egrets got in on the action. This guy grabbed a fish but got his beak stuck. He struggled with it for quite some time before gulping it down. 

Spearfishing

Somehow, he managed to decapitate the fish in the process. Yuck.

Headless fish

And then, the real show began. A pair of Skimmers began making passes over the shallow pool. The light was great, the water was like glass. The birds dropped their bill into the water and whooshed by.

Mirror Image

Their bill automatically snaps shut when they feel something in the water.  I guess their neck bends so that they don't crash if they hit something solid. 

Skimmer

The birds would come up with a fish about 50% of the time but other times, they would be fooled into snapping up other things from the pond such as a feather. 

Skimmer with feather

When a fish was caught, it had no chance. The Skimmer's bill is like a vice. 

Skimmer

You can see how narrow the bill is when you look head on.  

Skimmer with fish

The bird would fly around with the fish until it was in the right position to be swallowed - while the bird was still flying.  You can see the fish being tossed mid-air in this photo. 

Fish toss

After about 30 minutes, the Skimmers were full and flew off. Harvey and I headed to the State Park to see if we could find the Avocet that had been reported over the past few days. We found the bird and what do you think it was doing. You guessed it, fishing. Here he is with his tiny fish prize. 

American Avocet 

Overall, the birds had a great day of fishing in Cape May. I kind of wished that I was fishing too. 

Banana Train and Boat Ride

This is the nerds first time in a large group like this which had many up sides like not having to worry about details like where to go, what birds would be there, how to get there etc. The group consisted of 16 birders, 1 bird field guide (Alex) and our driver (Gustavo or Gus). Gus took care of logistics and driving. Alex took care of finding the birds, getting everyone to see the birds, coordinating the meals and lodging etc. All we had to do was follow the group. We ate each meal as a group. Alex took time at dinner to review our bird list for the day and tell us where and when to meet for the next day's adventure.

Our first big outing and tour in Honduras was to a place called RVS Cuero y Salado which is a mangrove estuary. Alex told us to be at breakfast by 6:00 and on the bus by 6:30. The bus trip only took 20 minutes where we would board the "Banana Train" at 7:00. Banana Train?

Bird Nerds on Banana Train

Banana - we thought was due to the train being yellow but turns out that the train used to carry banana pickers out to the fields in the old days.
Train - well, it was on tracks. The engine consisted of an engine mounted right next to the driver who had a lever and a brake pedal. That's it. 2 cars were attached to carry all of our group plus the regular passengers such as school children.

The track was one long straight line that took us through really poor rural housing, fields that used to be banana plantations and swamps.

Linda - Banana Train

Military guards ride the train to protect the passengers. Not sure what could happen but we didn't ask.

Connie and friend

Di and Barbara ride the train

The train dropped us at the end of the line where little boats awaited to take us up into the mangrove estuary. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

Mangrove Estuary

Birders in boats

Our guides took us to the places where we could see the specialty birds that make the estuary home. The first bird that we saw was Boat-billed Heron. This is an impressive bird with a wide bill and cool floppy feathers on his head. 3 of them were in the mangroves along the water's edge. Our boat driver pulled right up so that we could get a good look.

Another resident along the banks were Northern Jacana. Here is a baby following the parent through the reeds and lily pads.

Kingfishers are abundant in Central America. Unlike our area where we only have one type (Belted), Honduras has 6 types that can be seen. We found 3 of them along the estuary.  Here is Ringed Kingfisher which looks the most like our Belted except it has a rufous belly.

Ringed Kingfisher

This one is Green Kingfisher. This gal hung around under the mangroves and allowed the boat to get pretty close.

Green Kingfisher

The most uncommon kingfisher is Pygmy. It is also the hardest to see due to it's small size and habit of hiding in the mangrove roots. Can you see it?

Pygmy Kingfisher

We saw lots of other birds plus some other animals like this huge Crocodile lazing in the sun.

Crocodile

And these bats hanging onto the trunk of a tree.

Bats

Here is a close-up of one of them. Furry little fellow huh?

Bat

The crowd pleaser had to be the howler monkeys. We heard them roaring in the distance and also stumbled upon a family right along the bank. Here is Dad keeping a watchful eye.

Male Howler Monkey

Here is Junior figuring things out for himself. He was curious about the boat.

Juvenile Howler Monkey

How cute is this?

Junior

What a great day in Honduras. And this is only the beginning. Way more to come as I process photos.

Trying to Improve

I set a few goals for 2014. The first is to concentrate on improving my photography so I bought the Canon 7D guide to learn about my camera.  So far, so good. Barbara and I sat on the deck yesterday and reset some of the settings on the camera. I think it helped. Here are some photos from today.

The first few are from the yard. The day started out foggy but the beggar birds were happy to pose for me. One of the Great Egrets in in breeding plumage. They get flowy feathers off the back. I crept around to the this angle so that I got a clear black background against the white bird.

Great Egret

This is the same photo cropped so that you can see the other breeding bit which is the green facial patch.  It is really bright.

Great Egret - breeding

Here is another one of the birds that hang around the dock - Little Blue Heron. I cropped this to show the reddish head.

Little Blue Heron

Most of the Nerds went out on the boat again today. Connie and I decided to go birding at Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management Area and then meet the girls down by Pine Island for a shorter ride. It was a great decision for us. Some photos from Babcock-Webb. The first photo is Common Gallinule which used to be called Common Moorhen. I like Moorhen better.  Check out that big red front on the bill.

Common Gallinule

We went in searching for Bachman's Sparrow which I have been trying to see for a long time. I thought we had it but after reviewing the photos, the sparrow turned out to be a Grasshopper Sparrow. The photo is not very good, but I learned how to switch between Manual and Autofocus which allowed me to get this shot.

Grasshopper Sparrow

We left Babcock-Webb and headed south to Pine Island to meet the girls. They picked us up in the boat and we rode over to Cayo Costa for a picnic lunch and hike out to the beach.  We were pleasantly surprised to find this Bald Eagle sitting on a piling in the harbor. What a beauty!

Bald Eagle

Here is the same photo cropped to just show the Eagle's head. I can't believe that the photo above was so clear that I could crop it and still get the photo below which is pretty sharp.

Bald Eagle - head shot

It allowed us to get pretty close before getting spooked. Here it is just after take off. I call this one "Peek-a-Boo" because you can see the Eagle's head through the wing feathers.

Bald Eagle - Peek-a-Boo

Not to be outdone, this Osprey posed pretty well on another channel marker while eating a fish. He posed for us as we floated by on our way back to the dock. You can see the half-eaten fish under his feet. Eeewww, gross. 

Osprey eating fish

I think these shots are much better than I would have had last week due to the changed settings. First, I set the focus point to be more precise. I also set the focus to follow the object (in this case, the bird) if it moves. We shall see if this success continues. . .