I had an surprise visitor to my birdfeeder in Feb and 1st week of March. A male Western Tanager in winter plumage. Bird books said that this is a casual visitor to FL. in winter. New bird for my life list.

It is is beautiful bird.

What fun.

Margaret: I'm not sure what kind of fish they stock the waterways with; I think there's catfish in there and maybe carp but I'm not really certain ... I wouldn't eat anything caught in these waters, too much trash in the water and who knows what. There's a rental house one house down and across the water from us where there've been many young people, one with a toddler and their yard sometimes is covered with plastic bottles, styrofoam containers and it gets into the waterway. A year or so ago I was out on the deck and heard a loud plop and looked in the direction of the sound and there were two (what appeared to be teen girls) on their back deck throwing beer bottles into the water! I called the HOA, took photo's of all the garbage/trash and sent an e-mail and they said they'd report it to the owner. It got better for awhile but a few days ago there was a lot of trash out there again. The lady at our HOA said the homeowner rents to family but whoever the family member is must allow a bunch of teens or young adults live there.

Wildflowers/Christine: Thanks ... the Bottlebrush is one of my favorites, reminds me of the weeping willow only with bright red brushes.

Holly: Thank You; my husband and I have been in Daytona Beach since he got out of the Navy in 1973 and it's not my favorite part of Florida (I'd rather be in a smaller town) but it's home until he retires in another probably two years, then we may relocate a bit farther south.

Lin, that is disgraceful behavior, young or old there is no excuse for it, ruins it for the other people that live there.

Barbara, the Western Tanager is a beautiful bird, I have quite a few that hang out in my yard all summer.

Barbara, very nice shots of the Tanager!

Barbara: That female Western Tanager is beautiful and I especially love that second photo! You are very fortunate to have one visit your feeders since it's probably rare for them to be this far east. We have two Tanagers that are Florida residents, the Scarlet Tanager and Summer Tanager and even though my Florida Bird Book says their range is statewide I've never seen either!

I was out on the deck late this afternoon and spotted an Egret in the water ... he caught and ate his dinner and then went searching for more but he saw me he flew away.

Nice series of shots of Egret swallowing fish. Always neat to see the bulge in the neck as the fish goes down. We have a lone Egret that feeds on lizards each day in our Publix grocery store parking lot. Seems so focused and oblivious to cars and people as it walks back and forth, poking its bill into the hedges.

It is interesting to watch them so intently stalking their prey.


Last year I got two pictures of an Egret eating a little turtle, I had no idea that turtles were part of their diet! The bird was in a neighbors yard down the way and I just figured it had a fish until I uploaded the photo's and zoomed in. What a surprise to see it was a small turtle!


Egrets are also opportunists. We were out on our boat a couple of years ago and saw a fisherman who'd left his boat and was fishing along the shoreline a good distance away. He hadn't covered his bait bucket and an Egret was feasting on the little bait fish:

I've been enjoying all of the bird pics in this thread.

I wonder if that fisherman knew what happened to his bate.

Christine: He looked like an avid fisherman with all of the equipment and the type of boat etc. so if he'd been fishing for a long time he should have known that Egrets, Pelicans etc. are fish thieves.

A bird's gotta do what a bird's gotta do.

There is a great blue heron who waits at a public fishing dock in the public park on the Intercoastal in Flagler Beach FL. The fishermen throw the heron the leftover bait every day. Its tempting to do but quite dangerous to the water birds who get used to humans and also get tangled in fishing line. Last week I went to a Wendy's in Bunnell FL. What a surprise, a lone adult sandhill crane was begging food at the door. It wasn't moving, even when people were going in and out of the restaurant. I think it had gotten used to people throwing it French fries. That really upset me. First of all, why was it by itself and also what an unhealthy diet it had. I wished that I had a camera with me, since it was such a shock.

We used to trailer our boat and vacation over in the Sarasota area; the public park where we always launched our boat had a fish cleaning table for folks coming back in after fishing. There were always Pelicans and Herons hanging around hoping for a handout, waiting for the fish remains which should have been disposed of properly and not thrown into the water for the birds but unfortunately it's a common occurrence throughout Florida. It is unusual for a Sandhill Crane to be begging for french fries and very worrisome to me that it had no fear of humans going in and out of the door which puts that bird in jeopardy. Someone should notify Wendy's and let them know that since 2002 it is illegal to feed Florida Sandhill Cranes: http://myfwc.com/conservation/... Maybe they could post some sort of notice in their window for their customers.

Good idea. I'm going to stop by there this afternoon, and if the bird is still there, I will go in and talk to the manager. It could just be ignorance of the law. Hopefully the crane has rejoined its buddies by now. The rest of them are over in Town Center Park in Palm Coast which is only about 1 1/2 miles away.

There's a Blue Heron that comes and visits our pond. My camera (more like the camera operator) doesn't get good pics of birds.

Since we throw back any fish we catch, there's probably plenty to eat.

Ibis are a problem here. Once it was devastating if you temporarily left your table in an outdoor restaurant. When you came back the table would be on the ground and cutlery lying about. They have committees to try and control them here.
Historically, the interesting thing is that once the ibis learnt to do this, the behaviour 'migrated' north along the coast as they learned from each other.

That's like the Loons at our favorite fishing lake, they teach their babies to steal the fish right off your line!

Christine: I bet there's plenty for those Heron's to eat in your pond! I like your photo's of the Great Blue Heron, it's fun to watch them as they stalk and catch their fish.

Glen: I see a lot of White Ibises here which is sort of appropriate because the name of my street is White Ibis. These photo's are from last year:

Margaret: Some birds are a lot smarter than we sometimes think!