Florida Intracoastal

Pictures from another area that I got a few hours to explore - two parks next to each other, one on the beach and one next to the Intracoastal channel.

Prairie Warbler:


Young coon that was apparently being kept as a park pet (he had a water dish in the gazebo where I met him):


Mangrove Cuckoo. This is actually a pretty rare catch!


Little Blue Heron:


Sanderling:


Least Tern with breakfast:


Red-Bellied Woodpecker:

Blackpool Warbler (this is by far one of my most popular pictures, more than 600 re-blogs on Tumblr so far):

Osprey (of course!)

And various other:

San Francisco Sea Lions

Wouldn't it would be a good name for a local sports team: San Francisco Sea Lions? 

The sea lions, as you might know, are a regular tourist attraction in San Francisco, chilling out on Pier 39 there. The people come in droves to watch them. Although, from time to time, I got the impression that it's the sea lions who come in droves there to watch the people...

Black-Necked Stilts

These birds manage to be both funny and graceful. Black-Necked Stilts are mudflat waders (thus the long legs), and they pick their food from deep inside the mud (thus the long bill!) I saw several pairs while I was in Florida.

In early May, they already had several young chicks each:

Closer to sunset, the chicks disappeared back in their nests, while the adults were picking the last of their suppers from the mud:

Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge

How do you "do" Florida in just 10 hours? That's the aggregate amount of daylight time I had to myself on my trip to Florida in early May (everything else was dedicated to a business conference). How do you fit most of what's amazing about that state's wildlife into a basically one-day sightseeing period? Well, you start by doing a month worth of planning. My plans included a detailed hour-by-hour itinerary starting from when the plane landed to when my business conference began. I triangulated all of the nature preserves by their proximity to the airport, the hotel, and the richness of the wildlife. I planned the road routes carefully to maximize the availability of coffee (my day had started at 4am) and minimize traffic light stopping times. While I had a nibble at the airport, proper lunch was going to have to wait until the sun went down. After all, a May day in Florida is not to be wasted lightly!

The result is the series of pictures that follows, in this and several future blogs. Each one highlights a particular park. These are from Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge (basically, a big swamp between the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee). Enjoy!

I think any show of Florida wildlife has to start with the alligators. My long lens makes it seem like I got closer to it than I did in reality, but it was still an awesome sight:


Baby gator in another puddle:


I saw the biggest grasshoppers I've ever seen there:




This is the Great Blue Heron that was modeling for so many visitors there:


You can see how close you could actually get to it:

A typical hot lazy Florida afternoon sight:


Common Moorhen:


Painted Turtle:


Little Blue Heron. Why not blue? It's a first-year bird. It's actually just molting into its adult colors - you can see some blue feathers starting to peek out.


Black-Hooded Parakeet. Not native to Florida, but a bunch of escapees have made it their adopted land. Now they nest, raise families, and support themselves there fully independently.


A curious Tricolored Heron:


Some more various wildlife: