Day 35 on Captiva

 

This morning we returned to The Shipley Trail at the Bailey Homestead and walked to the Pond Apple Trail to the retention pond area. We had another great birding event seeing many Great Blue Herons, Wood Storks, Blue Herons, Tri-colored Herons, Cormorants, Brown Pelicans, Ibis, Anhingas, as well as an immature Heron that I believe to be a Yellow-Crested Night Heron..  We have never seen as many Great Blues and Anhingas in one spot as we saw today. I lost count of the many Great Blues and most of them was busy feeding.   We  spotted the " Dairy Queen"Eagles in a far away Australian Pine and I managed to get a distant photo of one of their backs.   But the highlight of the walk was being able to photograph the Great White Heron and catching some shots of it feeding..    We also saw at least 3, if not more, alligators swimming in the ponds.

 

First to catch our attention were the many Anhingas:

Cormorants and Brown Pelicans are seen behind this Anhinga.

 Males, females, and immature Anhingas posed all around us.

 

The blue eyes and bright yellow bill  indicate mating season.

 

Next to get our attention were the Wood Storks.  

 Not as many Wood Storks as the last time we were here,

 but they were busy feeding and flying about:

 This trail is not just for people,

 

And now for the Great Blue Herons:

 

 

Video of Great Blue Heron on the Move:

 

One more Hungry Heron:

 

If the Wood Stork can use the trail, so can we.

But most of the Blue Herons  were going by air.

 

And now for the Great White Heron:

We saw the Great White Heron eating breakfast. 

 

 And then the heron flew away:

 

Other birds we saw:

 Cormorants and More

Pair of Tri-colored Herons

 Cormorants

Immature Night Heron

 Little Blue Heron

Eagle from A Distant

 

The Alligators were swimming in two of the ponds:

 

 

Back to the house for a lunch of sandwiches and then to the beach for the afternoon. Dinner tonight at the Pollack's Diner.  I prepared Orange Roasted Salmon served with Couscous and Green salad.

Day 31 on Captiva

Today was another trip to Ding Darling Wildlife Reserve to do some birding.  We arrive shortly after 9am on a beautiful sunny morning.  There were throngs of people today mostly Camera Clubs (with huge lenses on their cameras)  and a lot of "true" birders who we learned were there to see the African White Pelican or  also called Great White Pelican who was spotted Sunday with the White Pelican residents on the drive.  Among the birders were the Stokes.....Lillian called out when she saw the African visitor but he flew off before Al or I saw him.  You can check this pelican out on posts on these blogs Bird Tweets and Stokes Birding Blog.

I am going to add another post of all the Pelican photos from today's outing.
 There were also many other sights and birds on the drive today and here are some of our photographs:

Osprey

Ibis

Immature Ibis

 

 Ibis

 Pair of Tri-colored Herons at the Dike

 

Mix of Shore Birds

Reddish Egret in Breeding Colors

 

Tri-colored Heron

 

 Snowy Egret Eating a Shrimp

 

This Anhinga was sunning behind the next picture.

 

Alligator Sunning by the Drive

 Closer Look of the Alligator-What sharp teeth you have!

Now it was time for our lunch.....not to be around when the alligator starts looking for his lunch.  We went back to our spot for sandwiches and chips.  And then an afternoon of sunning ourselves like alligators but at the beach.   Beautiful day of sun and fun.

 

Tonight the Grill Master prepared Harry's Rib Eye Steak on the Barbie and we enjoyed with Baked Potatoes, fresh Green Beans with Basil, Caprese Salad and glasses of wine.  And we had dessert again...more Tiramisu.

 

Stay tuned for our photos of White Pelicans.