More Bahamas birds, Lakeview Drive Ponds

glam Gallinule

In the Bahamas, we stayed at the Comfort Suites on Paradise Island (following a recommendation by Corey Finger at 10000 Birds). Just down the road, less than a quarter-mile, is a birding hotspot, the Lakeview Drive Ponds, and we visited them several times during our stay.

Even before getting there, there were birds, like this cooperative young Green Heron by the roadside.

too young to know better

And the edge of a dirt parking lot held a few Common Ground-Doves, which were actually a life bird for me.

hello, lifer!

There are two ponds. The east pond is larger and a little wilder, and harder to find a good vantage point to. In one spot at the west end, you can sit on the roadside railing (or stand between it and the pond edge) and look east over the pond, though. The east pond is where the Least Grebes mostly stay (another lifer).

Least but not last

very grebelike

There was a mama grebe with a baby grebe peeping after her around sunset one day. Quite charming, though the light was too poor for photos.

Bahama Duck, yet another life bird

The west pond has a nice viewing platform, and is where the ducks mostly hang out. The exceptionally cute White-Cheeked Pintail (a.k.k Bahama Duck) was a real highlight.

Elena has decided these are the Best Duck.

Other waterbirds were also plentiful--a surprising number of White Ibis, one Glossy Ibis, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Common Gallinules, American Coot, a couple of stray Mallards that I'm assured are releases, Neotropic Cormorant...

Neotropic Cormorant

About sunset, an Osprey flew in to roost, and we saw Merlins as well.

I'll be your Osprey this evening

The viewing platform makes the west pond a popular place to feed ducks. I watched one afternoon as six people (one couple and four individuals) came and fed mostly the resident domestic Muscovy Ducks over a half-hour period. These are very fat ducks. Oddly the Mallards didn't come close for feeding, though the Pintails and Coots did.

Common Gallinule not shy at all

Some of the other waterfowl were quite habituated as well; a couple of the Gallinules would come right up on the platform and mix with the Muscovys, one one of the Great Egrets liked to loaf there as well.

habituated Egret

Notable among the landbirds was a fairly sizable flock of Boat-Tailed Grackles, which apparently are increasing numbers in New Providence recently. I took this photo just to document how many there were in one tree, but I kind of like how it came out.

artistic Grackles

North of the ponds, you can walk east along Casio Road to the Ocean Club. There were some nice birds hanging out in the vegetation on the north side of the road. Though I didn't find the Black-Faced Grassquits I was hoping for I did get amazing close looks at Smooth-Billed Anis foraging in the hedges.

smooth operator

Near the Ocean Club, I had my best view (and only half-decent photo) of a Red-Legged Thrush. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed by these thrushes; for some reason I thought they were bold and easily seen like Robins. Oh well. Very pretty, though.

got to be good-lookin' 'cause you're so hard to see

I'm going to do one more post about the Bahamas soon. Fair warning!

Common Ground-Dove, ohsocute

Florida, part 2: more birds

Thanks to the wonders of technology, we got continually notified as our flight home was delayed again and again, so we were able to travel more around the Ft. Lauderdale area. We spent a little time on a narrow strip of beach near a small park (Hugh Taylor Birch State Park), where Adam had frequently gone when he lived nearby. There were Sanderlings dashing in and out of the crashing waves, and Brown Pelicans cruising stately on the high wind.

The Sanderlings were another life bird for me--like the Blue-Winged Teal, I'm sure I've seen them before, but they weren't on my list. Cute little guys.

Anyway, I also got great looks at a lot of birds I had seen before, so I'm going to share a few pictures. This Belted Kingfisher was hovering pretty high over Green Cay. I guess she was grabbing insects from the air? This is one of my better bird-in-flight photos.

Most of the familiar birds we saw were at Green Cay. This Green Heron hinted along a marsh edge only twenty feet or so from the boardwalk.

Soras are usually hard to spot (except the one who was stuck in the Loch in Central Park last Fall). This one was pretty confiding.

Snowy Egrets are usually shyer than this, too. I wonder what about Green Cay made these birds all so confiding?

My first Painted Bunting was the famous Prespect Park (Brooklyn) bird earlier in the winter. In south Florida, they're feeder birds.

There's a feeder off the path between the parking lot and the nature center, which the Buntings liked. I saw my first female painted bunting there. While not as gaudy as the males, they are quite pretty birds. I think they are the only all-green birds in the U.S.

This very friendly Boat-Tailed Grackle hung around the Greek restaurant we stopped at the first day, begging food and singing. The waiter told us the bird would steal sugar packets from the tables.

There were Boat-Tailed Grackles all over Green Cay. Here's a nice close shot of a female.

We saw various warblers, as well. Besides this Palm Warbler (one of several), Yellow-Rumped Warblers were thick in the reeds. There were a few Black-and_White Warblers as well, and along the path from the parking lot I spotted a Prairie Warbler.

And in the last minutes of our second trip to Green Cay, we spotted this Nashville Warbler near the parking lot, a local rarity that had been frequently sighted there this winter.

This Red-Shouldered Hawk was one of two hawk species we spotted in Florida (the other were a juvenile and an adult Marsh Harrier). This Red-Shouldered is quite pale, which apparently is a common color morph in south Florida.

Here's a nice close-up of a Pied-Billed Grebe to round things out. I'll have one more Florida post in a couple of days.

Green Heron at work

apparently, fish tickle when you swallow them

A Green Heron showed up at Azalea Pond in Central Park on Thursday, and spent the day happily fishing. It was a good close look--the bird spent most of its time on a small fallen branch only a few feet from the pond's edge.

It was the smallest Green Heron I've ever seen. They're supposed to be 15-18 inches long, but I think this one was barely a foot. It seemed to be OK, though. Maybe it's just young.

When resting, it looked like it had almost no neck.

But when it got interested in something...

..it would stretch out and get it right quick.

After that, it would swallow the fish and do that ruffled-feathers thing in the top photo.

I watched the heron work for quite a while.



Time well-spent, I think.

Green Heron

not the Easter Heron

It was a slow week--mostly northerly winds, not favorable for migratory movements--though I picked up a couple of new species for the year. Northern Rough-Winged Swallows were at Turtle Pond Monday, and a male Common Yellowthroat was under the willow at the Upper Lobe on Wednesday. Those are both normal species for Central Park.

I went up to the Bronx for Easter. I saw on my phone that a Green Heron had been seen in the willow tree at the end of Point in Central Park early in the morning. That's a pretty good bird for the park; I see one or maybe two a year. So although I didn't think it would still be around when I got back to Manhattan late in the afternoon--on a beautiful Easter Sunday, there would be rowboats all over the Lake to disturb it--I needed to at least look.

So it wasn't there. People out on the Point were watching a male Yellow-Rumped Warbler, about the only warbler around the last few days. Nice-looking bird.

I swung around to Willow Rock, and I ran into a birder named Ginny--and she had spotted the Heron in a willow tree there. Perfectly logical place for the bird to wind up, but it was very well-hidden. Very good spotting, that was.

My photos of this bird are uninspiring--it was really well-screened by branches--so I'm showing off a nice photo I took of of a Green Heron at Azalea Pond a few years ago.

The Green Heron is my 103rd species of the year in New York County.