Over the past few days I've spent quite a bit of time in the St Petersburg area, visiting Fort DeSoto twice, and Boyd hill nature preserve yesterday. I'm still adding birds to my list each day, but things are slowing down. I'm finding it very difficult to pick up passerines, with only a handful on my list.



Fort DeSoto is an amazing site, with lovely beaches and great birding. Here there were numerous heron species on offer which were very tame, as well as various species of waders, terns and magnificant frigatebirds.

Fort Lauderdale

The last two days (12th & 13th) I've been in and have been travelling to and from Fort Lauderdale, which is down south of Florida, near Miami.

I'm starting to get the hang of the birding out here now, with my eye at least semi trained in. The drive to and fro was fantastic, with a total of six swallow tailed kites seen, several red tailed and red shouldered hawks, wild turkey, wood stork, numerous species of egrets and herons and many other species seen.

Double Crested Cormorant

When in the Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale area, a visit to West Lake Park offered the opportunity to photograph some approachable cattle egrets, snowy egrets and white ibis. However, due to time constraints little else was seen here. Of note in the this area was the abundance of iguanas and various other inntroduced/escaped reptiles.

Snowy Egret

White Ibis

Cattle Egret

Grasshopper sp

Green Iguana

Basilisk

At the end of the day, a visit to a known site yielded several burrowing owls including two adults and at least 3-4 newly fledged young. These birds were amazing to watch and were quite approachable if care and consideration was taken.

The following morning rewarded me with opportunities to photograph some closely perched northern rough winged swallows and white winged doves, of which the latter is extremely abundant in the area; mourning doves were seldom seen in comparison.

Northern rough-winged swallow

White-winged dove

On the journey home, we visited Shark Valley which is a pathway through the Everglades National Park. This place was amazing. I took some pretty mediocre pictures of a great blue heron here - the first decent view I had. There were huge numbers of florida gar in the water, those things were strange looking. The highlight of this place was a medium sized alligator which decided to pull itself out of the water and walk right past me!

Alligator

Great blue heron

Red-bellied woodpecker

Red cardinal

Anhinga

My list out here is growing, however i'm missing quite a few warblers and all the waders. When I have time i'll post the full list on here and add to it at the end of each post. Im going to Adventure Islands today which is basically a water park full of huge slides. Can't wait. Hope ye enjoy the blog and pic's.

Talk soon,

Seán.

Tampa Bay

I've arrived safe and sound at Florida and am currently in my third day here. The place is lovely although the humidity is certainly something that takes a little getting used to. The food out here is seriously good and I can see myself putting on a few pounds out here, haha. As for the birding out here - it's seriously good. As I type I can hear a flock of chimney swifts calling outside, with the odd mourning dove singing as well as screeching blue jays.


Lettuce Lake Board-Walk

Day 1 (9th June), I payed a quick visit to Lettuce Lake Park. This is an excellent site with a boardwalk stretching 3,500 feet through forestry and marshland. It hosts numerous breeding birds such as summer tanagers, prothonotary warblers, red eyed vireos, swallow tailed kites, osprey, etc. I didn't get to spend much time here this day, as there was a fairly bad thunder storm looming. However, I did get to see a pair of swallow tailed kites, many ospreys, singing parulas and a pair of downy woodpeckers. Below is a picture of a very confiding osprey at the site.

Osprey


Also that day, I paid a visit to the local dog beach which is great place for seabirds including least terns, royal terns, laughing gulls, cormorants and a number of other species including loggerhead shrike, northern mockingbird, carolina wren, etc. During this visit I came across a very approachable loggerhead shrike which spent most of its time calling and hunting from a post along the beach.

Loggerhead Shrike

American Oystercatcher

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron


Day 2 (10th June), I took another visit to lettuce lake park where I saw a green heron and had several singing red eyed vireos, red cardinals, parulas etc. I also saw my first wild alligator here. On the way I saw a pair of swallow tailed kites, two dark morph short tailed hawks as well as a light morph. I also took a visit to the dog beach again where I took a number of pictures of confiding birds.

Green Heron

Mourning Dove

Brown Pelican

Boat-Tailed Grackle

Laughing Gull

Florida

So.

Tomorrow is officially my last day of this summer in Ireland. I'm off to Florida for three months. I'll be doing a LOT of birding and general wandering in the wilderness, so i'll be updating this a lot more regularly.

Apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks - I was majorly bogged down with final year exams and the general debauchery associated with finishing.

I'll try to take pictures to the best of my abilities but i'm not promising masterpieces (haha). Also, I intend to keep a tab of my list/sightings over there as I build it up and gain experience out there. I'll probably throw in a few rambles and misc' posts also.

Keep in touch,

Seán R.

:)