Pied Billed Grebe

This pretty little duck escaped many times from me. I found him at the Gemini Springs park in Debary, Florida. It is a very nice place to find Ospreys, Red Shouldered, Red Tailed and Cooper Hawks, Cormorants, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Herons, Swallow Tail Kite, Tri-Colored Herons, Bald Eagles, American Bittern, Anhingas, Bobwhite Quails, Least Flycatchers, Tufted Titmouse, Cardinals, Palm and yellow rumped, Warblers, Great, Cattle and Snowy Egrets, White and Glossy Ibis, Belted Kingfishers, Barred and Great Horned Owls and many more. There are also many types of butterflies and dragonflies.

Common Moorhen

The common moorhen,also called florida gallinule or swamp chicken, lives mostly in freshwater marshes and large ponds. They are good swimmers and the live in Florida all year-round. The common moorhen breeds in Central Florida, especially near the east coast. It is recognizable by it's red shield plate above it's bill.

A group of these birds is called a "plump".

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Snowy Egret

This very beautiful shallow water bird can stand still for a long time until an unlucky fish passes too close.














This Snowy egret was captured at Gemini Springs Park,Debary,Florida.

Limpkin

This unusual but fascinating bird was with his little one on that day . They feed mostly on apple snails(hmmm hmm...)By looking at the Limpkin's bill it is no wonder they can search deep in the ground for this delicacy.

Pileated Woodpecker

You can hear the Pileated Woodpecker drumming on a tree from far away. They often fly in pair from tree to tree.

I took a few pictures of them at the Gemini Springs Park in Debary, Florida.

Wood Stork

This bird used to be called Wood Ibis while it is in fact a large American wading bird in the stork family.

The Wood Stork it is the only of it's kind that breeds in North America.

I captured a few souvenirs pictures of this intriguing bird which supposedly carried us all at the door of our family to be, as per the legend, at the Gemini Springs park in Debary, Florida

Cormorant

Very common in the marshes of central florida where it finds plenty of fish to catch.

Well, that doesn't mean sometime they don't get into a fight for a fish(like in this picture i took at Gemini Spring park in Debary,Florida)

Little blue Heron

The Little Blue Heron breeds in sub-tropical swamps. They form a colony and build their nests on stick platforms. They lay from 3-7 lightblue eggs.

Mature herons of this specie have a purplish neck. They hang with snowy egrets for protection and fish catching.

Osprey

The Osprey aka Sea Hawk is a fish eating bird of prey that is fascinating to watch.I have seen them can stand still 50 to 100 feet in the air over the water for a long time looking for a fish and then dive into the water to grab a small fish.

They breeds along the freshwater and they mate for life.

I had the chance to see them fly over me at the Gemini Springs park in Debary,Florida. Lucky shots on my Nikon coolpix p80

Red Shouldered Hawk

The Red Shouldered Hawk is a beautiful bird of prey that you can see just about everywhere in the USA. This bird's diet consists of turtles,snakes,large insects,mice and other small mammals.They build their nests at a major fork of a tree and they have hatch 3 to 4 eggs which have an incubation period of about a month. The new borns are usually out of the nest within 6 weeks.

On a personal note this is a great bird to take in picture, you can sense a bit of a majesty in them. These photos above are all of young red shouldered hawks. I used a Nikon Coolpix p80 to capture them at the Gemini Springs Park, Debary, Florida