This morning, two other nature photographers and myself, drove over to the Venice beaches.  Our first stop was the Service Club Park.  The main objective of this excursion was to take a lot of Sanderling images.  One of the group is a wood carver and he is now starting a carving of Sanderlings.  He needed for information as to details of this bird.  We saw mostly Laughing Gulls and a few Ruddy Turnstones along this area of the beach.  However, we did see three juvenile Sanderlings feeding along the shoreline.  We decided to drive down to Casperson Beach.  On the way back to the car, we saw two Scrub Jays looking for a handout.

The Casperson Beach area had many more birds.  Along with the numerous Laughing Gulls, we saw Royal, Sandwich, and Common Terns, Willets, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Ruddy Turnstones, and a few Sanderlings.  The birds were having a feast.  Small fish were being washed up onto the beach with the waves, making breakfast an easy task for the birds.  The tide peaked at 4 am this morning, thus was on its way out.  The sky was partly cloudy, making for great lighting along the beach with the sun rising in back of us.  It was interesting to note that we did not see any Sandpipers along the beach. On the drive home past the Venice airport, we spotted an eagle’s nest in one of the towers with one Bald Eagle near by.

I went over to the Babcock-Webb this morning.  I haven’t been there since April.  Since hunting season starts on October 27^th, I wanted to see the area before the hunters came in and stirred things up. The first thing I noticed was that Tucker’s Grade was now paved up to the gun range, a nice improvement.  I continued along Tucker’s Grade and turned left onto Seaboard Grade.  I noticed several dozen Queen butterflies scattered along the route.  Shallow water was on both sides of the road, although the roads were dry and hard. I then turned left onto Tram Grade.  I continued on Tram Grade past Oil Well Grade for another 2 miles, where the road was blocked by a closed gate.  I then turned back and turned right onto Oil Well Grade. I followed this road back to Tucker’s Grade, then turned right to exit the WMA.

Although I only saw 20 different species of birds, there was a nice variety.  Birds seen included  Anhingas, Eastern Bluebirds, Cardinals, Catbirds, Sandhill Cranes, Northern Flicker, Cooper’s Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Eastern Meadowlark, Mockingbirds, and several dozen Palm Warblers. It was a beautiful October morning, although it turned rather breezy as the morning progressed.

After seeing a bird listing on Monday about the number of warblers seen at Corkscrew, I decided to visit there the next day, Tuesday.  I arrived about 8:30.  I spent the first three hours on the Lettuce Lake side of the Sanctuary.  I did find a cluster of small birds feeding and slowly moving on.  After taking a lunch break, I walked around the entire boardwalk, again finding most of the smaller birds feeding on the Lettuce Lake side. 

I was able to identify six warbler species, including Black-and-white, Hooded, Magnolia, Yellow-rumped, Yellow-throated, and a Blue-winged (a lifer).  I also saw American Redstarts, Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Gray Catbirds, Great-crested Flycatchers, Gnatcatchers, Ovenbird, Eastern Wood-pewee, Eastern Phoebe, Tufted Titmouse, and Carolina Wrens.  Larger birds seen included a Great Horned Owl, Cooper’s Hawk, and a Red-shouldered Hawk.

Unfortunately, getting good images of the smaller birds was very difficult due to the dense vegetation and rapid movement.  I saw 32 different species of birds while there.  When I left, I heard the total number of species observed by various staff and volunteers numbered 50.  So it was a good day at Corkscrew.