Friday, 14 February 2014
Happy Valentine’s Day! I Love BIRDS! Welcome back to another exciting year at the Gatorland rookery. We’ve had some interesting turns of events so far this year. Great Egrets are displaying and pairing up; some had eggs the first week of January! Unfortunately, none of them made it to hatching, predators and the cold snaps were too much. A second round of eggs are cooking now though. I expect to see some chicks in the next couple weeks. The Anhingas are nesting on the east edge already. Males and females are easily distinguished by their breast color. The Snowy Egrets are gearing up for spring, no nests yet. The Roseate Spoonbills are teasing us as usual by hanging out with us in the northeast corner of the marsh for the afternoon. I’ve seen Barred Owls in the early mornings and on Saturday nights. They go back and forth with their “friendly” Red-shouldered Hawk neighbors. Other sightings this morning and recently in the rookery include: Limpkin, Tri-colored Heron, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Little Blue Heron, Great Blue Heron, Osprey, Common Gallinule and plenty of passerines. The Gray Catbirds and Boat-tailed Grackles are struttin’ their stuff. Our new feeders will hopefully bring in more small birds. The gators haven’t started any breeding behaviors just yet. Lastly, I was thrilled to see a dark morph Short-tailed Hawk fly over early Monday evening. Happy birding!
Adam Hall
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