Had a stroll around the Green Cay Wetlands in Palm Beach last week, after visiting the zoo. There were tons of people around, but the wildlife was still abundant.

This limpkin was calling loudly to his mate. The call of the limpkin is quite distinctive. The pioneer and explorer Hugh Willoughby, in his narrative, "Across the Everglades" (1898) described it as follows:

"The worst sound to sleep through is the cry of the limpkin. When do these birds sleep? Or do they ever sleep? We have seen them about all day, and they seemed like a quiet, well behaved bird, but their conduct at night is something most disreputable. I would drop off into a doze, conquering the other sounds, but as soon as a limpkin would screech I would be wide awake at once."

They frequently call during the day at Green Cay.



Here are some duckies for Pete:





Can you spot the bittern?



American Bittern

I have been enjoying my time off. My chest is feeling a lot better. I finally found a good cough suppressant so I am not coughing and aggravating it all the time, and the pains in my ribcage are not as sharp.
Yesterday we went to the Palm Beach Zoo for the first time. Although smaller than the Miami zoo, it had a lot of interesting animals that they don't have there. Some of which I am very fond of and don't get a chance to see often, like anteater, sloth, and tawny frogmouth.
We wandered around and saw the "Wings over Water" show, which consisted of some trained birds flying between the two keepers. I especially enjoyed when the whistling ducks flew in and gobbled from their dish.









Some bats from the "Creatures of the Night" exhibit.



I love anteaters.





This was the strangest animal on the carousel. I find the tiny hummingbird feeding off the flower growing out of the saddle even weirder.



Tawny frogmouth. They are named for the bright green lining on the inside of their mouths, which unfortunately we did not get to see, since we missed feeding time.



Kookaburra

Some Ruby-throated hummingbirds have been spotted in the garden over the last week. Sunday was a gray and miserable day because of the "cold" front moving through, so that was the day that this one chose to perch in plain view for an extended period of time. I would like to get some better shots of wild hummers but they are very skittish.



In other news, I've had some more health problems. I had to go to the ER last night because of sharp chest pains. They did a load of tests, and found no major problems, so they concluded that I had caused trauma to my ribcage due to all the coughing I have been doing.
They gave me a bunch of pain killers and anti-inflammatories but it still hurts a lot when I move or breathe. I am really hoping it will improve soon because I had planned some wildlife watching/photography outings over christmas break. Oh well.

We finally got out to ENP last night. We got there in the late afternoon and saw lots of different wildlife.

White-Tailed Deer


The worst picture of a White Tailed Kite ever. I have only ever seen one once before. They are pretty rare.


Cottonmouth crossing the road


Vultures congregating at the dumpster


After dark, there were toads and snakes all over the roads. We saw several species of snake: cottonmouth, ribbonsnake, corn snake, and the highlight for me was a small kingsnake. The best sighting of the evening was a Barred Owl in the road, maybe scavenging some roadkill, that I photographed when it flew up into a cypress tree.





Looks like some cooler weather is finally coming our way tonight so with luck it will bring with it some interesting birdies.

Ive been down lately because of being sick, and some other things at work and stuff. So, my mom and I made this cheery gingerbread house. It was fun to decorate. I took some pictures before it is devoured.

Its funny because normally I am not really into Christmas, I found it depressing and tastelessly commercialized. But this year I really started getting excited about the whole thing. The past few weeks have been rough but I have come out with a new found appreciation of what I have and what is important in life. Anyway enough rambling, hopefully I will be posting wildlife pictures again soon.

I am finally starting to get over the nightmare germs. Hopefully I'll be able to go somewhere nice this weekend and get some pictures.

This is a larger iguana than the baby one thats been around since summer. It hung out in the papaya trees for a while and then stalked off into the preserve. I think it will probably hang around because its been so hot and dry and there is lots of water and fruit trees around here.

Coughing all the time and generally lethargic. I hope I get over this soon so I can get out and take some pictures.

Here's a happy little nasturtium leaf.