Birds seen today

 Willet and boaters

 Pelicans

Three Carolina skimmers and two Royal terns. They go to the same barber.

Pelican and cormorant PVB

DOVE, MSD

This little guy was in the middle of the sidewalk when I turned a corner. He flew up into a bush and posed for me.

Egrets, Intra Coastal Waterway, Roscoe

 We had a tiny fog last week and I went out on the dock and took these. I think that I like the bottom one better.

Delusions of grandeur.

 This little hawk, (pardon my ignorance, I'm not sure which hawk.), Was perched atop our local church with it's symbolic fish weathervane. It lives among Ospreys and probably was just showing off.

Immature Ibises, Jax Beach

These are white ibises in their immature plumage. This flocklet was very tame and barely cleared a way when I came lumbering. I see this every year with ibises, the young form their own flock once they have figured out how to feed themselves. It's sort of like going through your whole life with your third grade class.

Egrets, 16th hole, Ocean Course

This is the start of breeding season for all of our local birds. Egrets are usually territorial and solitary, but this time of year congregate, looking for dates. Cormorants, another usually solitary water bird, gather in large flocks and get in a line in the water and beat their wings on the water and drive fish to the edge of a pond or lagoon, where they can dive and eat. Egrets, being no dummies, wait on the shore and get their share. Every now and then even a pelican will swim behind the line of cormorants and suddenly fly over them and dive, getting a beak full of fish.  These guys were awaiting the line of cormorants.

Bird recovery, Jax Beach

 I was ending my Sunday walk in Jax Beach when I came upon this little guy. He or she had probably flown into one of the glass store windows. Usually this results in a broken neck and a dead bird. I thought the wind was ruffling it's feathers but there was no wind, so I looked more closely and saw that it was breathing and trying to fly. So I picked it up and held it for a bit until it started cheeping indignantly at me. I put it up high in a bush and it yelled at me a bit more and then flew off.

Now we each have a story to tell.

Cement dove, sidewalk, Nocatee

Peacock, driveway, Roscoe.

Life is never dull here in Palm Valley. I came out on afternoon last week to discover this peacock walking around the driveway pecking for bugs. He was totally unintimidated by me, or, a few minutes later, by my car, as I left to get groceries. When I returned he was gone. Somebody down the road has a bunch of them and you can hear their calls echoing down the road in the mornings.

Flight of Ibises, Roscoe.

I went to take a look at my garden when these Ibises flew over. I could here them coming by their wing beats. Always have a camera with you. If Annie Grant sees this......those are Weetabixes;~)

Carolina skimmers, Ponte Vedra Beach

These lovely birds pass through twice a year on their migration. Those long downward pointing beaks allow them to skim the surface of the ocean and catch fish, thus the name.

Crow, Sawgrass

Terns, Ponte Vedra Beach

Brown Pelican, Jax Beach Pier

Black skimmer, PVB

Every winter we get visits from black skimmers. The nearest bird, with the red and black beak is one of two in this flock of gulls. The other was a bit more standoffish. These have a long lower beak and feed by flying next to the water with their lower beak skimming the surface. They are beautiful to watch. I wish they were year round residents.

Gulls, PVB

Gull on the beach, for Markus

On his blog, spring2life take2, Markus Spring had a wonderful picture of a decaying bird in Prague. I saw it on the day after I took this picture, as the bird slowly melted into the sand.

Royal terns, PV Beach

These are here briefly and then will be gone until Autumn.