Cee’s Challenge: Found in Nature…Birds of a Feather

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Found in Nature

My friend, Connie, is a birder and can identify all kinds of birds by sight. Not me. Even so, I am thrilled when I see beautiful birds in a natural setting such as at the J.N.  “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, Florida. Here are a few birds that I can identify by name. Connie will make me into a birder yet!

White Pelicans with ten-foot wing span spend the winter in Florida and migrate to Canada for the summer.

Roseate Spoonbills, often confused with pink flamingoes, live at the J.N.”Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge all year round.

Brown Pelicans swim among the docks at Sanibel, Florida waiting for the fishing boats to come in so they can get the tasty tidbits the fish cleaners throw to them.

I haven’t identified this bird yet, but with its distinctive coloring, I am sure I will identify it soon, possibly a member of the cormorant family.

Little Blue Heron

Osprey, or fish hawks, can be seen sitting on nests high in the treetops. We see osprey along the shore in South Jersey in the summer.

Six Lakes, North Fort Myers, Florida. White Ibis are a common sight near ponds, lakes, and seashore areas. A little blue heron hangs out with a white ibis in one of the lakes at Six Lakes.

Finally, I couldn’t resist posting a picture of this fellow I saw sunning himself at The J.R. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge.

Skywatch Friday: Eagles in the Nest

A friend told me about an eagle’s nest in North Fort Myers, Florida, not far from where I was vacationing. I had to check it out. Here is what I found. 

The eagle nest (tree at left) is found on Bayshore Road near I-75 in North Fort Myers, Florida. The male eagle is sitting on a dead tree at the right.

The female eagle, Harriet, is at the nest.

The male eagle, Ozzie, is sitting in the dead tree.

An eagle cam is set up to document the growth of two unnamed eaglets born on Christmas day, 2013. You can find more pictures of the eagles at https://www.facebook.com/SouthwestFloridaEagleCam   Here is a close up of Ozzie taken by Greg M. Hill on January 12.

The eaglets made the local news tonight in Fort Myers, just minutes after I published this post, because the eagle cam showed that the bigger eaglet was picking on the weaker eaglet. Today’s Facebook notes on the Southwest Florida Eagle Cam noted this bullying.