Crops & Clips-- flashback to December 2018

We will celebrate this December, our final month living in Florida by looking three years back, through the 441 photos I processed in December, 2018. I hope to find images which depict favorite memes: critters of all kinds, especially birds, flowers, butterflies, beautiful skies, reflections...  and scenes which speak for themselves.

Great Egret before sunrise on December 3:

The same bird in full sunlight:

One of my first images of the month was of this Gray-headed Swamphen, demonstrating its use of prehensile toes to pluck and eat the tender shoots of Spikerush:

Little Blue Heron:

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron:

A male Palm Warbler in early morning light:

Yellow-throated Warbler:

Common Grackle:

Northern Mockingbird on Brazilian Pepper:

Blue-headed Vireo:

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird:

Flowers and fruit of Firebush (Hamelia patens), favored by hummingbirds, butterflies and warblers:

Prairie Warbler:

Male Northern Cardinal:

Female Bald Eagle (Jewel) flying with Tree Swallows:

Immature Red-shouldered Hawk:

Composite view of a female Bobcat sprinting:

Gulf Fritillary:

Tiny flower:

Light fog before Sunrise:

Sun rising over Sunset Lakes:

Our entrance gate all decorated for Christmas:

Rosyfinch Ramblings will be dormant for a while as we are relocating from Florida to Connecticut. Although we both are natives of New Jersey and learned to live with four seasons, this is probably the worst time of year to migrate north. For eighteen years we have not "molted" out of t-shirts, shorts and sandals. As I write this, snow is falling and the wind is howling at our upcoming destination. Hope to be back and enjoying entirely new flora and fauna despite cold noses and toes-es.

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Linking to:

Garden Affair

Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

Camera Critters

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Natasha Musing

Our World Tuesday

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World

Timeless Thursday

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Please visit the links to all these posts to see some excellent photos on display
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Parade of the ibises

It was a week of medical appointments and as much backyard bird watching as possible. As is usual during the first two weeks of November, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker returned to our West Indies Mahogany tree. 

What I cannot understand is that each year it is a new immature sapsucker. A few years I have documented their molt into adult plumage, gradually adding red feathers on head and throat. I expected that each young bird from the previous year would return as an adult. 

Over the years the sapsuckers have peppered our tree with sap wells. They clean up old ones and drill new holes. This bird has a hint of yellow on its undersides:

Our Mahogany seems none the worse for all the damage done to its bark. Look closely to see its emerging fruit (actually nut-like drupes which contain large seeds relished by squirrels and jays):

Over twenty adult White Ibises marched together along the shore:

One stopped to preen:

They filed past the "For Sale" sign in our back yard. We just had open house and attracted over 30 family groups, nearly 100 visitors. (We received seven offers to buy, selected one and now have less than a month to move out to Connecticut):

A Little Blue Heron foraged in a shallow spot:

This species has a habit of sitting very still with the tip of its bill nearly touching the water. It seems to be  near-sighted:

A Tricolored Heron exhibits its impatient and erratic feeding methods, almost running across in front of me:

It flew diagonally across the lake:

I ventured out for my first visit to nearby Chapel Trail Nature Preserve in over 6 weeks. The Gray-headed Swamphens were quite vocal:

A Great Egret stalked in the sedges, probably looking for insects and reptiles:

Light was poor and a Common Gallinule was far away:

MaryLou spotted a raptor on a distant treetop. This is how it looked through the binoculars. By its shape it was a small falcon:

I increased exposure compensation and was able to see enough detail on the cropped image to identify it as a Merlin:

In the parking lot, a Loggerhead Shrike perched on a fence:

There were pink clouds over our lake early in the evening on November 16: 

A bit later the nearly full Beaver Moon emerged from the clouds:

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Linking to:

Garden Affair

Fences Around the World

Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

Camera Critters

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Natasha Musing

Our World Tuesday

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World

Timeless Thursday

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Please visit the links to all these posts to see some excellent photos on display
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Saharan dust

South Florida has settled into a rather boring but typical wet season pattern following the spate of tropical storms which culminated in Elsa. We are also in the middle of the Saharan dust season. Dry air masses laden with dust have been coursing over from the African continent. This has the welcome effect of reducing the intensity of the tropical storms which spawn cyclones in the eastern Atlantic ocean.

Visits to nearby Chapel Trail Nature Preserve were not very productive. The high water levels dilute out aquatic prey and wading birds are free to forage over a much greater expanse. 

Often I can find a dozen or more Gray-headed Swamphens, but this morning there was only one:

A pair of Northern Cardinals foraged on the boardwalk for the fallen fruit of an overhanging tree:

The male cardinal perched on the boardwalk railing near an interpretive sign:

A male Anhinga, partially hidden in the spike-rush, dried his wings:

A juvenile Red-bellied Woodpecker searched for food on the trunk of a small tree:

White-winged Doves nest along the boardwalk:

Swamp Lily:

Brown Basilisk:

The Sarahan dust is said to stabilize the weather, which has been rather monotonous, with warm days and nights along with intermittent "pop-up" showers. This past week's forecast was remarkable (32.2 to 25.5 Celsius):

The dust can produce very colorful sunrises and sunsets. Fifteen minutes before sunrise this past Saturday morning, the unseen sun was reflecting off a pink mass in the upper atmosphere:

Within minutes, sunlight had illuminated the expanse of the dust cloud:

While the sky directly overhead was otherwise clear, storm clouds were lined up along the Atlantic coast to the east. The shadows of the tops of the clouds broke the rays of the rising sun. The rays reflected off the dust layer and converged over the Everglades on the opposite (western) horizon. The anti-solar rays were creating a "false sunrise," so I hurried to the lake to catch the reflections on the still water:

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Linking to:

Garden Affair

Fences Around the World

Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

Camera Critters

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Natasha Musing

Our World Tuesday

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World

Timeless Thursday

________________________________________________

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