Having read Scott's report on birding the Sunshine State, we figured we'd add our account of yesterday's birding adventure down here. Friends from upstate New York joined us for a tour of the Viera Wetlands south of Titusville. In spite of a late arrival at the site due to construction on I-95, we managed to record 57 species. We had set our goat at a modest 45 which we easily surpassed and had aimed at two specific target species. The first was the Crested Caracara and the second the secretive Least bittern. The first was a piece of cake as the bird flew right into the drainage ditch adjacent to our parked car for a meal of mudpuppy. A most cooperative bird, the usually elusive caracara paid us little heed and went about his dining while we were afforded a number of quite nice shooting opportunities. The bittern was not quite so cooperative. After almost 4 hours on the reserve, we finally got a quick glimpse of the Least and finally patience paid off. Sitting quietly in wait, we were rewarded for our efforts by several brief but clear views of this fine specimen. As we watched and photographed the bittern, an unexpected gem, a Marsh wren, flew right into view for us to study at close range. Just another day in paradise.

Owlets

This has been a great year for owling here in Florida and we decided to simply post a couple of shots of the newest arrivals. In the past week, we had the opportunity to check out a couple of nests with chicks on board...on the left is a barred owl chick awaiting its mother for its next meal and on the right a nest found at Sylvan Lake Park which was home to this pair of Great horned owl chicks. Check out the images and enjoy these little bundles of joy.

Chilly Days in Florida

Well, the sunshine state may be sunny, but it feels more like a northeast winter lately. By March, Central Florida is usually coming out of the relatively cool winter months and is on a warming trend. Our morning temperatures have been in the 40s and barely reach the high 50s for our daytime high. Hopefully that will change in the immediate future and we'll be back to what we consider is "typical" Florida weather. In the meantime, Sharon and I have been scouting out some of the refuges in seach of birds trying to stay out of the heavy winds. Cold temps don't generally bother them as long as food is still abundant, but the winds really tend to knock them down. And so, our birding has been mostly in the wetlands and more sheltered parks of late. In the past three days, we visited several local parks including Buschmann Park in Port Orange, Riverbreeze in Oak Hill, and Spruce Creek just north of New Smyrna Beach. We were pleased to find some new warblers moving into the area including Common yellowthroats, Black and Whites, and Northern parulas. These are early spring birds for us and their showing up must mean spring is just around the corner. We'll be sending them up to our summer haunts in the near future, but for now, we'll delight in watching and photographing them here at our winter quarters. We also picked up a new "year bird", the Spotted sandpiper, in exactly the same location where we had him last year. No mating plumage yet, but attractive all the same. As I write this, I'm looking out the window of our condo and watching the waves which had been coming out of the north for the past several days, now approaching from the southeast.....signs of warmer weather finally arriving!