Thanksgiving in Florida: Yard Birds

This year I spent Thanksgiving in Florida visiting family and squeezing in as much birding as possible. Luckily, Florida makes that pretty easy. I visited two years ago and gained a new respect for birds I didn’t appreciate while growing up in the Sunshine State and I was excited to return and find more critters.

My mom lives in Tampa near the University of South Florida, Lettuce Lake Park, and a small but productive pond right next to the house. She would have a pretty bad-ass 5 mi-radius if she wanted. Two years ago, her yard produced my lifer Black-throated Green Warbler, and this time it gave me a lifer Prairie Warbler!

Blurry, but there’s a bright yellow chest and throat, dark streaks on the sides, olive back yellow eye crescents, and black eye-line. I refound it the next day to try for better photos.

This bird was tough to get! The best I could manage:

One easy warbler to find is the Palm Warbler.

They’re everywhere with that yellow undertail continually wagging.

Another easy find was Eastern Phoebe always calling “Fee-bee!”

And Brown Thrashers, another great southern yard bird.

And of course, the ever ubiquitous, Northern Mockingbird.

One morning I heard a tussle of raspy high-pitched trills that turned out to be a NOMO street fight.

An Eastern Gray Squirrel and I watched safely from the sidelines.

Closer to the pond I found a juvenile Little Blue Heron.

Almost all white with a hint of light blue coming in. Makes me wonder what evolutionary advantage having white followed by blue feathers could be? Curious.

Nearby I caught a quick glimpse of one of my favorite birds, the Gray Catbird.

And higher up in the trees were gobs of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.

It’s funny to think how popular the one gnatcatcher in Portland was, when there are so many here, but that’s the fun of rarities.

Other birds I saw were Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and bubbly House Wren.

I heard a Carolina Wren singing before I finally spotted it deep in the shrubs.

And I saw another iconic yard bird, the Northern Cardinal.

I happily eye-balled all these birds I haven’t seen in so long, then noticed a bunch of  raucous Blue Jays.

And realized I wasn’t the only one eye-balling them. Cooper’s Hawk!

Fun stuff, I could spend days enjoying the yard birds, but we had to check into the condo on the beach the next day.

Many more Florida birds to come!

Tweets and chirps,

Audrey