Tag Archives: Florida

On The Road, Photos-Landscapes

~Little Manatee River State Park~

January 11, 2015 Sheila 4 Comments

Little Manatee River State Park, is a quite state park located in Wilmauma, Florida. It offers miles of hiking, biking and horseback riding trails along with fishing, boating and swimming.

Howard, Skye and Kloud enjoying the view.

Looks like a nice day for a be out on the river. — Looks like a nice day to be out on the river.

A slice of river — A little slice of river.

We enjoyed our time at Little Manatee River, which we spent mostly hiking. On one of our hikes we encountered a golden colored snake, which we had never seen before. After looking it up on the web we decided it might be a Golden Rat Snake. We admired its beauty as it slithered off into the brush. No photo, it was too fast!

I have to say, not much in the way of birding at Little Manatee River. Hopefully, it had more to do with the time of year than the habitat; however, I have noticed that when an area has a lot of Palmettos the birds are scarce, just not enough for them to eat.

It was time for us to leave Little Manatee River, so this morning we packed up and headed to our next adventure.

Until next time…

On The Road, Photos-Birds

~Crested Caracara~

January 10, 2015 Sheila 17 Comments

As described, in birding books: “The Crested Caracara often walks on the ground on long legs in search of prey”.

And, this is exactly where Howard and I saw this large raptor. We were out for a hike and as we crested a hill at The Celery Fields in Sarasota, Florida, we spotted this Crested Caracara across a large field. The Celery Fields are very picturesque and known as a great place to bird.

The big guy was on the ground, surrounded by Vultures, and appeared to be feeding on something in the grass. We decided to see if we could approach him close enough for me to capture a photo. As we got closer, he seemed so focused on his prey and with keeping the Vultures away, that he simply ignored us.

I didn’t want to get so close that my presence disturbed his eating, but close enough to get a few photos. He stayed on the ground eating for quite awhile and then flew off. As we walked over to see what he was eating, which appeared to us to be a huge catfish, the Vultures flew off unhappy with us!

The Crested Caracara is fairly common in Texas; rare to casual and local in Azizona; rare in Louisiana; fairly common and local in Florida.

Their Florida and Arizona populations are stable with Texas population increasing and expanding. They are considered threatened federally and in Florida.