Friday, June 8, 2012

Birding the Local Patches

We made it out to several of our local birding patches this past week. We started the week with a visit to the Moccasin Island Tract area. The drive out to the tract often times offers opportunities to view numerous species in action. Today, however, we only observed numerous Cattle Egrets as they mingled with the cattle. Eastern Meadowlarks were the highlight of our stroll along the trail. The Meadowlarks perch on fence posts that runs along the trail, singing to one another.

Eastern Meadowlark 

Our next stop was at the "Click" Ponds, which are location at the entrance to the tract. The ponds continue to be occupied by several varieties of herons and egrets. The Little Blue Herons continue to molt into their permanent blue plumage.

molting Little Blue Heron

The Green Heron and a Snowy Egret took turns chasing one another from this desired perch.  It was a rather unpleasant exchange between these two birds and the Snowy Egret seemed to have the upper hand.

Green Heron

Green Heron

It's always a good idea to scan the bushes, because you never know who my be lurking, like this Red-shouldered Hawk!

Red-shouldered Hawk

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge was our next stop. We arrived late morning and it was not a very active time for the birds. The highlights of our trip were seeing this Eastern Kingbird....

Eastern Kingbird

and this foraging pair of Black-necked Stilts.

Black-necked Stilts
St. Sebastian Preserve State Park was also on this week's agenda. I blogged about my birding adventure at the park on my monthly post at Birding is Fun!. Have a great weekend!

23 comments:

  1. All very nice shots but I really like the hawk photo.

    Have a good weekend Tammy!

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  2. Looks like a great stroll! Love the Eastern Meadowlark. Haven't been able to find one here in Pennsylvania yet.

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  3. such great shots! really enjoyed the herons, and that meadowlark!

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  4. That hawk is stunning, really nice set of photos.
    Shaun Valleys ShutterBug

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  5. A wonderful series again!
    Great to be back and discover what you have done these last days!
    The Red-shouldered Hawk is such a fantastic catch but so are all the others, including the Green Heron with its crest up!!
    Thanks for your visit on my blog! :)
    Cheers Tammy!

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  6. Awe, it must have been a beautiful day, and the birds, all of them are brilliant state, but, my fave is the Green Heron.

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  7. Hi Tammy! .. Herons and raptor beautiful but I love the first picture. It is a lovely bird.. Regards

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  8. Preciosas Tammy. Saludos desde Extremadura,

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  9. Tammy every image is a masterpiece,top prize goes to the Eastern Meadowlark.
    superb collection.
    John.

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  10. Great collection of birds! I'm a sucker for those Little Blue Herons though- def my favorite shot!

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  11. Hi Tammy!
    Lovely serie as allways, but i like the little Blue Heron moste.
    Have a nice weekend
    /Ingemar

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  12. Beautiful pictures of the birds.
    Greetings Irma

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  14. Hello again Tammy !
    You are still very active with the camera ..The Eastern Meadowlark was a very colourful and beautiful bird, never seen this, a typical american specie ? The hawk was beautiful too, I love birds of prey you know, have a nice photo-weekend.

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  15. Lovely images Tammy..they are beautiful.

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  16. Hola Tammy otra sensacional serie de aves,envidio el lugar donde vives por la gran variedad de aves que hay.Un fuerte abrazo.

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  17. Wow, I love both of the herons! Gorgeous photos! I do love the raptors, though, so the hawk is right up there, too. Nice catch light in the lark!

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  18. Excelentes fotografias de belas Aves....

    Cumprimentos

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  19. Bellas secuencias de unas bellas aves.

    Saludos.

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I greatly appreciate your comments!