On the way home, we stopped by the Fort Christmas Historical Park in Christmas, Florida. They were having their 35th annual “Cracker Christmas” event where they provide demonstrations of early settler life in Florida. There were also some Civil War reenactments going on.
I think I’ve confessed here before that I’m just a beginning birder. I enjoy identifying the birds I see, although sometimes it’s tough for me to figure out ones that I don’t see very often. Gulls and Terns seem especially hard. Anyway, I photographed this bird last weekend at MINWR and it took me a while to sit down and research what it is.
…this is a wonderful time of year to visit MINWR. There are lots of birds around, including many winter visitors and if you’re lucky you can see other wildlife too.
Water is very low and much of the bird population seems to have gone elsewhere. But we did see the regulars, including Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Tricolored Herons, Great Blue Herons, Mourning Doves, Kingfishers, Black Vultures, Blue Wing Teals, and Red Wing Blackbirds.
We’d heard about a sighting of a Redhead duck and wanted to see if we could find it and sure enough, we came across it after just a little while. I think it’s amazing how a few bits of information over the internet can lead to sighting a semi-rare (for Florida) bird. It’s a great time to enjoy this kind of thing.
Jetty Park is located on the south side of Port Canaveral in Brevard County. Depending on where you leave from, it’s a little over an hour from Orlando, basically a straight line along the Beachline Expressway (528 toll road). In addition to the jetty and 1200 foot fishing pier, there’s also a 120+ site campground and beach (with lifeguard) at the park.
While there we also saw another bird that I didn’t recognize. It turns out this is a White Crested Sparrow and they’re supposed to be rare in Florida. My second life bird of the day!
Anyway, I returned to Scrub Ridge Trail last Saturday and I did see 5 or 6 Scrub-jays. This one was up in a tree, keeping watch on me. Probably one of the non-breeding members of the family.
Hello again, readers! I apologize for a somewhat lengthy post, but today I wanted to catch you up on photo related happenings over the last couple of weeks – so there are several topics worth mentioning. Circle B Bar Reserve A week ago (Saturday, 22 Jan), I returned to the Circle B Bar over in … Continue reading Catching up
If you are at all interested in technology and space exploration, then you really should visit the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) when you are in Central Florida.