Author: Gary Walker

Tis the season for our northern visitors. I’m not talking about the mass migration of “snowbirds”. I’m talking about waterfowl. We have huge numbers of ducks just about everywhere. One small lake behind Costco has become the winter home for ring-necked ducks and lesser scaup. They look very similar. The main differentiating feature is the…

The young great horned owls are growing quickly. Last week we checked in on our favorite family and they are still doing great. On Friday we visited an eagle nest for the first time in several months and to our surprise, the eagles had been displaced by great horned owls. In fact, their lone owlet…

Last week I had the pleasure of joining a group of some of the top birders in Manatee County, Florida for a field trip to Port Manatee. The trip was hosted by the Army Corps of Engineers due to a number of highly restricted areas. The fields and ponds consist of silt dredged from the…

Yesterday turned out to be a great day to capture some photos of a female great horned owl guarding her nest. Great horned owls usually find the absolute worst spot in a tree for a successful photograph. It seems like they always want to sit on the darkest branches facing away from the sun amongst…

I mentioned in my previous post that we found a very large flock of green-winged teal ducks on Thursday. Finding the green-wings completes the “teal trifecta” for me for 2021. There are 3 species of teal in North America – blue-winged, green-winged and cinnamon. Two weeks ago we found a cinnamon teal which is a…

One of my favorite places for nature photography in this area is Myakka River State Park in eastern Sarasota county. It is a huge park consisting of 37,000 acres with the Myakka River cutting through the center. Along the way, the river is dammed creating a large lake and vast wetlands. There is a wide…

I spent the last two days photographing a pair of bald eagles with their two new chicks. The nest is in the open, so photo opportunities are amazing. The parents stay busy. We watched them hunt for fish and today they brought back a whistling duck. When they’re not feeding the chicks, they fly off…

This past weekend I had the opportunity to photograph a cinnamon teal. It’s a bird I have never seen in the wild. Cinnamon teal are seldom spotted east of the Mississippi River so finding one here in Florida was a real treat! They are beautiful birds, especially in flight where you can see their light…

The other day I posted about seeing several birds this season that are very uncommon in Florida. Black-chinned hummingbirds are typically found in the western states, most often across the rocky mountain region. While most migrate to western Mexico, there have been sightings across the gulf coast in recent years. We were fortunate to see…

I recently had the pleasure of capturing some fun birds in flight images with my neighbor and artist, Jerry Horine. We found an active area where wood storks were moving from their morning roosting spots. Storks are great targets because they tend to slowly glide a long way before landing. I also never realized how…

It seems each year we are seeing more birds that are seldom seen in Florida. Most of the birds are typically found much farther west. This year has been no exception. A few of the uncommon sightings include a black-chinned hummingbird, black scoter ducks, ash-throated flycatcher, scissor-tailed flycatcher and scaly-breasted munias. We even had a…

2020 was a good year for at least one thing. I put my bird feeder up in late October and attracted a male painted bunting in full color in early November. To our delight, he has stayed with us since his initial visit. I have been on a mission to get a photo of him…