Happy Mothers Day! Here are a few of the great moms I have been able to photograph over the past few months. Don't miss the baby in pic #1.🪶

Screech Near and Far-I have seen a ton of pics of this owl and the beautiful nest and had to make the trip this AM. Here is a tight and wide crop for some variety. I also got to see one of the babies come right to the edge of the nest but never quite poke out. Those pics to come.🪶

Red-shouldered Hawk closeup🪶

Female Snail Kite with Apple Snail🪶

White-tailed Deer foraging for breakfast. 🦌 #mammal

Wild Turkey crossing the road this morning🪶

First time I have seen my owl peeping out in this position. I have been thinking there would not be any babies this year as it just moved in about a month and a half ago and I have not seen a mate. When I saw it sitting like this today I started getting my hopes up again. 🤷🪶

Fledging day-These shots were taken on the morning that these two little cuties fledged. I missed that part but got some pretty cool shots in the morning of their last day in the nest tree.🪶

A big peek and a little peek. I love to capture the baby Sandhill Crane on the parents back each year. It's amusing to see them, pop their little heads up through the feathers or sometimes just disappear among them. 🪶

Neighborhood Rounds: Well my Pileated Woodpecker babies fledged, but I still found a few interesting sights around my neighborhood. This Blue Jay swooped down and grabbed the Brown anole off the top of the fence. He put up a valiant effort, but it didn't end well for the anole. 🪶

It's tough to stretch your wings in a full nest. With three owlets in this little spot it was getting a little too crowded for these guys. Only about 2 days later the 2 visible ones fledged while their younger sibling hung out for about another week. 🪶🦉

When you have the nest all to yourself.🪶🦉

Watch out above! It's a tough life for young Burrowing Owls. You're too small to leave the burrow area, but when mom decides to clean you get a mouthful of sand.😂 🪶

I think this owl may have been upset at his upstairs neighbors for making too much noise. Keep flipping to see the neighbors who live in a different nest cavity in the same tree.🪶

Male Pileated Woodpecker leaving nest (6 photo series.) One of my goals when watching this nest was to catch the parents leaving the nest cavity and flying off.🪶

Little Great Horned Owl chick popping up from the resurrection ferns to see what all the fuss is about.🪶🦉

Green Anole from my yard. Love these guys. The green anole (Anolis carolinensis) is the only lizard species native to Florida. Due to competition with invasive brown anoles, they are now often found higher in trees. (3 photos) 🦎

Little Great Horned Owl chick popping up from the resurrection ferns to see what all the fuss is about.🪶🦉

Gulf Fritillary-3 pics as we have these in our yard now too. 1)Butterfly 🦋 2)Chrysalis 3)Caterpillar #insect #macro

Great Egret catching a tiny fish🪶

Great Blue flying and squawking. 🪶

Virginia Pepperweed

Dune Groundcherry

Crazy! This washed away this Oystercatcher nest I posted about 2 weeks ago. Rogue wave that came 200' above the tide line last Saturday night.

Great Horned Owl checking out the sunrise. 🪶🦉

A pair of White Peacock butterflies 🦋

Have to break up the bird pictures every once in awhile.😂 This cute little Black Racer was hanging out neck to the trail at my local park this morning. 🐍

How about some dragonflies? #insect Eastern Amberwing

Boat-tailed Grackle🪶

Three stages of Common Gallinule 🪶

Spoonbill foraging for some breakfast. 🪶

A few more shots from my recent encounter with freshly hatched Killdeer. It's amazing the little ones are up wandering around the day they are born. As you can see in the last shot though they still like to cuddle up under the parent.🪶

A colt, a parent and an egg. At this nest for whatever reason the second egg did not hatch. The colt in these pics is 3 days old and the family was in the process of returning to the nest for the night. 🪶

Burrowing owls typically have bright, intense yellow irises, which are a characteristic feature for these diurnal (day-active) hunters. While yellow is the standard, some individuals, may exhibit mottled, dark brown, or olive-green speckled irises, often from recessive genes. 🪶🦉

Little Barred Owlet sitting in a tree. The opening video shows the curious little one watching everything going on around the nest. The other 3 pics show what it did the rest of the time. ZZzzzzz! 🪶🦉

Burrowing owls typically have bright, intense yellow irises, which are a characteristic feature for these diurnal (day-active) hunters. While yellow is the standard, some individuals, may exhibit mottled, dark brown, or olive-green speckled irises, often from recessive genes. 🪶🦉

Red-tailed Hawk-Recently I saw a big bird swoop in and land nearby. I realized it was a Red-tailed Hawk. It's partner arrived shortly after. I think I have only ever seen them once near my house. These shots are posted in reverse order. It looks like it caught 2 baby ducklings.😢 🪶

How to tell male from female Pileated Woodpeckers: If you can get a good look at their faces, you'll notice a red cheek stripe, similar to a mustache, on the males that the females lack. A more subtle difference between males and females can also be seen ..... 🪶

The moon and clouds.

During my recent excursion looking for Burrowing Owls I stumbled on an empty lot near a canal. There were probably 20 Green Iguanas sunbathing there. Most of them took off when I stopped the car, but I got pics of a few of them.🦎

Triple Threat-One of the hardest things when photographing a nest with multiple birds is to get them all looking in the same direction for the picture.🪶🦉

Mondays, am I right? This baby Burrowing Owl is still growing it's head feathers so looks a little scraggly. I enjoyed my first visit to these guys in about 2 years. 🪶🦉

Remember the Killdeer nest I spotted about 3 1/2 weeks ago. They hatched! My first time seeing baby Killdeer. I have been checking daily recently because I knew it was about time and so glad I did. I got to watch the family with 4 babies for about 45 minutes last night. 🪶 Continued...

Mondays, am I right? This baby Burrowing Owl is still growing it's head feathers so looks a little scraggly. I enjoyed my first visit to these guys in about 2 years. 🪶🦉

All ruffled up that the weekend is almost over already.🪶

Wilson's Plovers are specialized coastal shorebirds known for their oversized black bills, which they use to crush fiddler crabs on Atlantic and Gulf coast beaches. These birds are famous for nesting directly on open sand.🪶

Newly hatched Monarch butterfly in my backyard. 🦋

A couple of birds that I haven't shared from last summers Ecuador trip. 1)Slate-throated Redstart 2)Golden-naped Tanager 3)Russet-crowned Warbler 4)Orange-bellied Euphonia 5)Golden Tanager🪶

Great Egret portrait session on black. Wouldn't want to be a fish staring down the pointy end of this guy.🪶

Just a little one trying to figure out the outside world. Enjoyed my mornings with these guys and glad to hear they are doing well. (2 videos and 3 pics) 🪶🦉