Saturday, March 3, 2012

Best of Estero Llano Grande Pt. 1

Without a doubt, Estero Llano Grande State Park is my favorite place to bird. They've got a great variety of habitats and it's 10 minutes from my house. Most of the pictures I've taken in the last month come from there. I had a few that I wanted to share from early this month, and I have two more visits I did that I'll share later on.

This first one is a quick shot of everyone's favorite sports' mascot, the Northern Cardinal. There's always a couple around peeping in the bushes by the feeders in Estero's tropical zone. I know they're common everywhere, but...seriously. Super handsome.




Speaking of super handsome, this fellow (who's a bit uncommon in the RGV) was hanging out in the ponds by the observation deck. He's another east coast bird: The Wood Duck. He's so pretty, he looks fake:





The wading birds were around in the pond as well, including this Lesser Yellow Legs and this Black Necked Stilt. There's a wraparound deck and a wooden walkway that winds around by the pond, so it's a piece of cake to get fairly close to birds, hence the great shots:










Also in the pond that day were a bunch of Pied-Billed Grebes. Sometimes, people ask if they're ducklings who've been abandoned by their mothers. Nope. They're this small and cute for life. For. Life.
Next time, I'll put up some more pictures of the tropical zone and some winning warbler shots. Until then...