Birds and Other Nature Sightings

      My wife and I had a late flight out of Orlando, so I wanted to use part of the day to visit Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive.  My wife, bless her, indulges me.  Wildlife drive is about an hour drive from Orlando International Airport.  Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive is very similar to Brigantine Wildlife Drive in Atlantic County, NJ.  Both are one way auto loops stretching between eight and 11 miles long through local, natural habitat.  Bird lists for both locations are well over 300 species.  However, the Florida site is only open to vehicles from Friday to Sunday.  Last August I visited the drive mid-week and the only access was on foot or bicycle.  I walked about 7 miles that day in the Florida sun with practically no areas to seek shade.  The upside was there were no mosquitoes or greenhead flies like the New Jersey site.  This would be my only chance in the near future to enjoy the drive from a car. When we entered the drive I had two target birds in mind.  I wanted a snail kite which

     My wife and I continued our short holiday vacation by heading up to Wesley Chapel to visit my aunt and cousin.  Wesley Chapel is about 20 miles north of Tampa.  It lies between Land O’Lakes and Zephyrhills and is the most populated community in Pasco County.  It is an inland community, but one doesn’t have to walk far anywhere in Florida to find some water.  This was a family-first visit, so birding would mostly be incidental.  Like elsewhere on our short Florida vacation, birds like osprey, red-shouldered hawks, anhingas, ibis, egrets, herons and the like were not hard to find. Mottled duck (left) and anhinga (right).   © S. Weiss Unlike cormorants, which are similar in appearance, anhingas will soar hawk-like high in the sky. Strolling through my aunt’s neighborhood I found some ponds that hosted mottled ducks.  Mottled ducks look very similar to female mallards.  Of course, mallards and mottled ducks hybridize which can make identification tricky at times.  In past visits I hav

     My wife and I had use it or lose it airline credit, so we took a short trip to west Florida to visit family prior to the holidays.  Our first stop took us to Punta Gorda.  The small city is the county seat of Charlotte County and rests along Charlotte Harbor.  The area was hit hard by Hurricane Ian back in September.  Homes and property still under repair and piles of debris yet to be picked up are lingering signs of the hurricane’s impact. Christmas at Punta Gorda.   © S. Weiss We spent two days with my uncle, so all my birding would be incidental.  One can build a modest bird list by incidental birding in Florida just about any time of the year.  I was able to check off many of the typical Florida birds in the neighborhood where we stayed.  Osprey, pelicans, palm warblers and the whole family of herons, egrets and ibis that were in New Jersey not too long ago were plentiful in Punta Gorda.  Anhingas, rare in New Jersey, are a common sight throughout Florida.  Red-shouldered hawk