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Thursday, December 24, 2015

On the boardwalk at Chapel Trail

We normally visit Chapel Trail Nature Preserve in nearby Pembroke Pines in order to observe wildlife from its 1/4 mile boardwalk. I started thinking about what we might have seen ON rather than FROM this structure, so I searched my photo archives and turned up quite a few creatures!

The clouds of a buttermilk sky reflect on the wetlands:

Chapel Trail2 HDR 20151024

Chapel Trail HDR 20151017

The boardwalk:

Chapel Trail boardwalk 20151017

A candid shot of Mary Lou trying to find a bittern:

Chapel Trail Nature Preserve Boardwalk

The railing of the boardwalk can be very interesting place to meet a few birds...

...like this Red-shouldered Hawk..

Red-shouldered Hawk 20130520

...which promptly flies off:

Red-shouldered Hawk in flight 2-20130520

A Cooper's Hawk:

Cooper's Hawk 20121207

A pair of Mourning Doves:

Mourning Doves 20130322

A Limpkin:

Limpkin 3-20110323

A couple of combative Northern Mockingbirds:

Mockingbird standoff 2-20101230

A Tricolored Heron:

Tricolored Heron adult 5-20141118

A Snowy Egret, resplendent in "Golden Slippers:"

Snowy Egret 20090118

An immature Little Blue Heron:

Little Blue Heron 03-20151010

Another immature Little Blue Heron with an itch:


 Little Blue Heron immature 20141118

 Not having hands to scratch it is no problem with a neck like this:

 Little Blue Heron immature neck 20141118

An adult Little Blue Heron:


Little Blue Heron 20111016

An immature Green Heron:

Green Heron 2-20110925

The yellow-eyed local subspecies of Eastern Towhee:

Eastern Towhee 20100402

A Palm Warbler:

Palm Warbler western 20111016

An Eastern Phoebe, watching as a male Julia heliconian flies by (not a very tasty morsel):

Eastern Phoebe meets male Julia 20131031

A White-winged Dove:

White-winged Dove 20140824

A brace of wizened Black Vultures:

Black Vultures 20110411

At the canoe dock, an Anhinga drying its wings:

Anhinga 20140824

Aside from the birds, we saw a native Green Anole. Its population is decreasing because of competition from introduced reptiles, such as...

Green Anole 20140718

...this Brown Basilisk, on the floor of the boardwalk, descendant of an escaped or unwanted exotic pet:

Brown Basilisk 20130722

Of course, we saw many beautiful butterflies, but only this Ruddy Daggerwing rested on the boardwalk rail:

Ruddy Daggerwing - Marpesia petreus 20120923

= = =  = = =  = = = =  = = = = =

Linking to Misty's  CAMERA CRITTERS,

Linking to Eileen's SATURDAY'S CRITTERS,

Linking to GOOD FENCES by Tex (Theresa). 

Linking to SKYWATCH FRIDAY by Yogi, Sylvia and Sandy

Linking to WEEKEND REFLECTIONS by James

Linking to BirdD'Pot by Anni

Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday by Stewart

Linking to I Heart Macro by Laura

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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display

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30 comments:

  1. Awesome shots from the boardwalk. The bird and critters images are awesome.
    Merry Christmas to you and your family!

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  2. some really great shots, as always! thanks for linking!

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  3. Another fabulous collection of images! The hawks are very handsome. Merry Christmas to you and your family!

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  4. Very beautiful series, Kenneth! Merry Christmas to you and yours. :)

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  5. Wow - what a gorgeous group of photos! Love seeing all the variety of bird you saw!!

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  6. Merry Christmas, KCS! My little brother had a basilisk when we were kids. That one looks amazing.
    ~

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  7. SUch a beautiful caption.
    Love the white cloud & blue skies.

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  8. All your pics are awesome! I particularly like the cooper hawk with open wing. A merry Christmas!

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  9. Fanatstic captures!!

    http://randomscribblingpad.blogspot.in/

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  10. Beautiful reflections and collection. Merry Christmas.
    Sydney – City and Suburbs

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  11. Hello Ken. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Just dropping in to say thank you for linking up and sharing your post. Have a happy weekend!

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  12. Beautiful! Wonderful!
    Best wishes for the New Year!
    Lea

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  13. you have some birds here I never see I'm in Sebring, Fl

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  14. What an amazing collection of images! There certainly is a lot of variety to the wildlife there.

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  15. Amazing shots, especially the action ones. - Margy

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  16. What a great collection! Your shots are wonderful! I linked some critters too!

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  17. Superb shot! The one with the butterfly and the bird is amazing!

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  18. Gorgeous fotos, , best regard from Belgium
    Happy days untill New Year
    http://louisette.eklablog.com "blog my city Mons in Belgium"

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  19. Great series of superb images, Ken! Pretty good variety of visitors to the boardwalk. Just pack a lunch and a lawn chair and who needs to go hiking?

    We hope your New Year is filled with birds and peace.

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  20. Some incredible bird photos Ken & I'm impressed that you know all their names. I must say I've never heard of a Limpkin before. Great capture of the Hawk in flight & the one of the Bird watching the Butterfly was excellent timing. We have a wetlands area a few miles from home with a boardwalk but I've never been there. Think I'll have to invest in a telephoto lens. I bought a Nikon DSLR yesterday with a standard 18 - 75mm lens but something bigger for distant shots would be handy. I still have to work my way through the manual & figure out how it all works, The last SLR I had I was a Richoh in my late teens back when you had to put film in them. This trendy modern digital version has a heck of a lot more buttons, knobs & settings that what I'm used to. I've previously just been using our Canon point & shoot which hasn't done too bad a job so far but I want to get more into photography as a hobby so a DSLR seemed an obvious choice.

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  21. Board walks and fences always seem to be birding hotspots in these places - and so do the car-parks!

    Cheers - Stewart M - Melbourne

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  22. Beautiful place with such lovely birds.

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  23. Wow, that is a lot of rail birds.... Beautiful ones too. Most fascinating to me is the yellow eyed towhee ... Did not know this! Love learning it ... Thanks for all and Happy New Year.

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  24. Wonderful images Kenneth - especially the Eastern Phoebe watching the butterfly pass! Thank you for sharing your world and your talent. Happy New Year to you and yours.

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  25. You captured some wonderful birds (and lizards) on the boardwalk! Loved the red-shouldered, but loved so many others too!

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  26. Another set of wonderful photos! I really enjoy them.

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  27. Stunning, gorgeous shares. WOW would I ever be hard pressed to choose a favorite, and yet I must mention the one bird that began my blogging journey over 6 years ago...your Red-Shouldered Hawk among all others together is simply stated...glorious. May you and yours have a wonderful and Happy New Year. Thank you for sharing life together through blogging~

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  28. Absolutely AWESOME birds on a rail photos!!! They're all sublime, but I must admit my favorite is the heron 'with an itch'.

    Thanks for sharing the link while I was on holiday blogging hiatus. Hope to see you link up again often during 2016. Your photo contributions are always valued!!

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