Wild Birds in my area of South Florida

I love to take pictures of birds, or any animals, I recently started filling up a bird feeding in my front yard, only problem is I am on the other side of a few bushes so branches get in the way and It is hard to focus my camera on the birds on the feeder.



This is a male Painted Bunting


a female Painted Bunting
I had never heard of a Painted Bunting till I saw these birds and looked them up, they are very small only about 5 inches.


Blue Jay


red-bellied Woodpecker


male Cardinal


Two Male Painted Buntings on the feeder.

I have also been lucky enough to be in the right place a few times and take pictures of Osprey's, they are huge birds in the same family as Eagles and Hawks.


I spotted this Osprey near my area.



This one seems mad that I stopped the car near him.

There are a few bald Eagle nests in my area, I was able to watch a live cam on the Internet last year of a bald Eagles nest that was probably 10-8 miles south of where I live, it was so neat, they hatched two eggs and grew up two baby's, then one of them received a tracking device, and we have been able to track her, Birdie, when they finally left the nest about May and traveled north, she was in Virginia for a while, then headed back to south Florida and has been around the area, give or take 60 miles, since about December. Young bald eagles are all black, no white head or tail for about 3 years.

I was in a Wal-mart parking lot last Friday, and a full grown Bald Eagle (white head and tail) was cruising on over head, just looking around and flew off to the south, that is the FIRST time I have witnessed such a thing, one time we were travel north to Disney World on the turnpike, and a full grown ball eagle was traveling south but my glimpse of him was minimum, I was driving could not see it, but it was grand.
The nest in our town is in Tesoro, a gated community, they were generous enough to pay for the web cam last year, but Tesoro is amongst the dying now, with our bad economy, and have filled bankruptcy, so no camera this year.
Nesting bald Eagles mate for life, they make the nest and both watch the eggs, then take turns feeding the baby's, then when the baby's are taught how to survive, they leave the area alone, and come back to nest again in December, I do not know if these two are back, no one is allowing the bird watching people on the property at this point, there is also 2 other nests in St. Lucie County where I live.
Birdie is still sending signals, and they post her places every month or so. Click to see the site.

This is her latest track.




Diane