Sunny, mid 70's, but windy
We have continued our January journey south towards the Everglades and today are in the Fort Lauderdale area. Two years ago, we were in this region of the country waiting to take off for Panama. During our stay, we discovered Brian Piccolo Park in Cooper City. The major attraction for birders in this park are the Monk parakeets and the Burrowing owls.
Now, Brian Piccolo is not your usual nature reserve. In fact, it is not really a nature reserve at all, bu rather a recreation area of soccer and softball fields, a bike velodrome, and a skate park. According to the field guides, "Burrowing Owls are found in open, dry grasslands, agricultural and range lands, and desert habitats often associated with burrowing animals". But, as so often the case, the birds don't always read the field guides. For some reason, the Burrowing owls find the habitat here equal to or better than the "dry, open, agricultural lands". Here is a shot of the park as we found it today. The area within the yellow plastic chain is actually one of the burrows occupied by the owls.
Because of the constant presence of the people using the park, the birds have little fear of our encroachment, and were only slightly keyed into our presence. Although they continually scanned back and forth, being ever vigilant, they never showed any real alarm. And so, the picture of today took a bit of traveling to get to it, but once there was a pretty simple and straight forward process of compose, focus, set the proper exposure and fire away. Ah, if it were always this easy. (Oh, by the way, we did get the parakeets for the year list as well, but they were nowhere near as accommodating as our little owls. A shot for another day......)
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| Burrowing owls of Brian Piccolo Park |
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