Now with link to images - trip that included some wonderful birding!
Last edited Thu Feb 15, 2018, 10:36 PM - Edit history (1)
Photos at: Circle B Bar Reserve And Bartow, Florida
It was just a quick trip to Central Florida to visit my Mom. Since Mom has little endurance these days, we always do other activities while in this area. This week we returned to a favorite place, the Circle B Bar Reserve just south of Lakeland.
The first thing we learned on arrival, announced by loud squawks and honks, was that right now there are many limpkins ready to mate. Apparently limpkins have been increasing in numbers now that they have learned to eat the invasive apple snail. And a LOT of them love the marshy habitats at Circle B Bar Reserve for breeding.
Before we got to the limpkins, though, we joined a small crowd watching a pair of barred owls who were hanging out right next to the main parking and picnic area. They were hanging out on an oak tree branch, under the fronds of a sable palm.
As we headed down the Heron Hideout Trail which goes between two marshy areas, we saw, a baby alligator, a few roseate spoonbills, snowy egrets, glossy and white ibis, little green herons, little blue herons, tricolor herons, black vultures, anhingas, moorhens (also in breeding mode), and of course the limpkins. Farther down the trail were a group of three ducks. Most people thought it was a mama duck with two ducklings, but when I reviewed my photos I identified the larger duck as a female black-bellied whistling duck and the two smaller ducks as a pair (male and female) blue wing teal ducks.
Around the corner on Marsh Rabbit Trail, I stopped to watch a limpkin looking for snails, then my brother in law realized that the object near it was a very, very large soft shelled turtle. Farther along was a Eastern phoebe who posed nicely for some photos, a little green heron less than ten feet from me who totally ignored me taking his portrait, and the largest cooter turtle I have ever seen. Twenty to thirty feet off the trail was a sandhill crane sitting on her nest - apparently just before I got there she had turned her eggs and other birders thought she had three eggs in her nest!
At one point there is a viewing blind out over the water. From that point we could see a large (maybe eight feet long) alligator sunning itself on the end of a bit of land. From the other side of the blind, Humpy, the most famous of the Circle B Bar gators, came cruising up. Humpy is estimated to be 13-15 feet long and has an unusual humped back so he is very distinctive. January 15 he was seen walking across one of the reserve roads, amazing the hikers who were close to him (for video see my post: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181044662). Humpy sailed over and hung out in the water next to where the other gator was sitting.
When I walked down the ramp from the blind, I saw the most amazing thing of the day - a great blue heron had caught something and was trying to swallow it. It was probably a giant siren salamander and had to be at least three feet tall. It took the heron a long time to kill the thing thoroughly enough to swallow it -the heron tried more than once and then would beat on it some more before trying again. I got a great sequence of photos of the entire thing and will be sending copies to confirm what it was that the heron caught.
On the way back along that trail (it goes in a big loop, but I was too tired to make the entire length) the hardest bird to see in Florida - a snipe - was sitting just off the trail. Unusually he was in thin weeds in the full sun. I got some good shots of him, too.
While taking a rest break, I got to watch two limpkins fight over a nesting site, while having a great blue heron stroll along the road thirty feet away, a limpkin cross the trail intersection a little farther along, and a white ibis come ten feet away to change march areas. The birds in the reserve have little fear of humans and are used to crowds walking around their territory!
My final cool sighting at the reserve was a wood stock hanging out on the branch of a tree. Some boat tail grackles were hassling him and he kept spreading him wings to intimidate them.
This morning we were driving around Bartow (my hometown), just south of Lakeland, and we passed one of the lakes. There were hundreds of male black-belled whistling ducks around this small lake. They were roosting in trees, standing on roofs and on the fences of some of the houses around the lake, but most were just sitting around the shore of the lake. As with many Florida lakes there are Muscovy ducks and some white crested ducks that have been released. In addition, the lake was hosting white pelicans, anhingas, a great blue heron, a woodstork, some black vultures, and a single fulvous whistling duck.
And to improve on a great couple of days of birding, right outside our hotel window was a nest platform with a pair of ospreys getting their nest ready for breeding season!
