Friday Birds

More Friday Birds

I've discovered that birding on The Wacissa is much better during the week when the river goes undisturbed by weekend air-boaters so I planned to take off early this morning to see who, who, who was on the river! The light was a bit on the dull side but the birds were all about having morning snacks. The Barred owl was in the little spring watching for breakfast, the pileated woodpeckers were calling me to visit, and everyone was drying out or hunkered down against the cold. Wish I didn't have to come in to work this afternoon. I'm a river rat.

Wacissa 1-5-07

More Wacissa River Images

Pileated Woodpeckers on The Wacissa River

My Soul is a Hawk

Hanging out on The Wacissa River

More Sunday Images

Sunday Birds

This is Bob the Tame Limpkin. He was a further upriver Sunday than where we last saw him, hunting snails of course!
We know this is Bob because he allows us to come right up to him and photograph him! I have suggested he might be blind and judging from the way he hunts for snails, with his beak in the water most of the time, and his indifference to being photographed up close, I might be right.


The Wacissa River calls to me so intensely, I knew when I woke up Sunday that I had to go again. The birds are so varied and hunting them is challenging. I take my Canon Rebel XTi with a 75/300 mm zoom lens and hold it in my lap. Some people would not think of taking a camera and managing it while also paddling in a small, low to the water boat. But the only reason I would tip over in this river is if I was careless while getting out of the boat. Even when you hit a submerged log, it really doesn't cause enough trouble to "drop you in the drink" as my dad would say when we were little. I am occasionally startled by a jumping fish or otters, but I am learning what different splashes mean and mostly I don't startle anymore. In fact, I have been making songlines out of different splashing sounds in my mind and I am finding otters more easily. Turtles make single plops. Otters make splashes that are loud and last awhile. Fish often jump about three times in the river in a row and then no more.

I was a bit late getting on the river on Sunday, 10:30 am to be exact and the wind was blowing up the river, blowing all the vegetation to the starboard side of the river, where I like to begin my hunt for owls. I neither heard nor photographed any pileated woodpeckers all day. Nor did I see any ivory-billed woodpeckers. Many of the birds were elsewhere today, perhaps because of the weekends airboats or the weather conditions. But I did see some as you can see here.

I don't know the habits of pileated woodpeckers except from my deductions and phenomenological experiences. I see that they almost always fly in pairs so I expect another when I find one. I see that they also eat those red berries that grow on the trees along the river because I have seen them. They seem to hunt in their roosting area in the early am and then fly off. They seem to return at the end of the day and I often hear them again around sundown if I haven't seen them in a place I expect, during the afternoon. Some seem to hang out in one place a lot like the Jekyl Island pileateds. Some seem to visit an area in the spring but not other times, like my yard. (Now the bird scientists will write to set me straight!) Sometimes they hang upside down to eat berries which is comical!

They seem to call when they are flying into an area to announce their presence. They fly across the river but not downriver. They hang out on the ground a lot and I often see them on logs on the ground if I don't mistake the pecking as coming from above. Pecking sounds vary depending on where they are. The ground pecking is more dense. The high pecking echos across the treetops. I am hoping that using my senses to find them will help me find Ivory-Bills.

Blue Spring Peckerwoods

I floated down to Blue Spring and the little woodpeckers were flying about, eating berries and hunting grubs.

Turtles Point Out Friendly Faces

The turtles spoke to me again! Look behind you! I chatted with this handsome and friendly fisherman... and then....my luck held out! I spied my good friends Ed and Linda taking a friendly float to Blue Spring! My friends will understand just why it was especially good seeing Linda for the first time in several weeks, in my favorite place...and let's not forget this friendly, fluffing limpkin...

Patriotic Fliers...As Seen by Turtles

The turtles were looking up! Were they looking at this flying machine or the other flying machine?

Otter Day on The Wacissa

The telephone woke me up at 6:45am this morning so after dealing with that I decided to make an early trip to the Wacissa to see what I could see. It turned into a very interesting day with many unexpected sights! I went down the leeward side of the river to look for pileated woodpeckers and owls and the water was boiling and splashing on the other side of the river. Otters! I watched them swim to my side and I snuck up on this fella eating snails. He saw me and off he went. I crossed the river to catch the pileateds I was hearing and they were plentiful but elusive this morning. I also saw this bird and a scientist tells me it is an immature Black Crowned Night Heron. More coming...

Both Sides Now

Around noon....I saw a red kayak and yellow paddles. At first I didn't even consider it might be Peggy because from a distance the color combination looked like a rental...Peggy is a gear-head and her stuff is all very cool, but red boat and yellow paddles???? I got out the binocs and the hat looked familiar....we both started towards each other and sure enough! I was happy to meet up with my paddling buddy even though she is a ten o'clock scholar, so to speak...off we went down river for another four hours!

She helped me spot my first, close enough to photograph, pileated woodpecker. We saw this
lovely egret framed by the reeds. Then we found Bob! Our trip was complete! We kicked up our heels on the Wacissa! I passed "King of The Faeries" on to Peggy and we also discovered my big-headed- child widened hips will only fit certain of the demos she suggested I try tomorrow at Lake Hall! I can already feel my pockets hemorrhaging Christmas money...

Starboard Songlines on The Wacissa

This weekend has been capitol, thus far! Friday night the Morbid Tablenapkin choir got together to sing and when I arrived home around midnight I then began to practice a fiddle tune on autoharp called "King of The Faeries." It is a modernized derivation of "Bonny Charley" and is called a summoning song. If it is played three times, the king must come! I awoke early Saturday morning with the tune in my head and it stayed there off and on between songlines. I went starboard on the river and saw an owl asleep with his back to me, first thing. Then lots of loquat trees...snoozing owl, loquat trees, red berries, big cypress, little spring....

This was my first limpkin...not Bob...he was further downriver after I met up with Peggy.
The birds were plentiful in the early morning with many feasting on berries when they could get past the hungry squirrels. I looked all morning for pileated (ivory-billed)woodpeckers but didn't photograph any until Peggy and I joined up and she pointed them out. I know where to look though and I watched them on the starboard side of the river all morning just where I expected. They were just jumping all around and my reflexes weren't too sharp this morning...I did get a good picture of this red-bellied woodpecker in Blue Spring....
_