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Posted by Jeff Bouton on 09:33:34 11/02/07
All,
Despite birding everywhere BUT Florida these days, I like to pop my head up once in a while to prove I still have an address in FL and bird once in a great while here. Plus I heard a nasty rumor somewhere that some FL birders thought I may have died or something, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to nip that in the butt!
At any rate, just before shooting up to Cape May, NJ for a bird show up there I had the opportunity to visit Wakodahatchee Wetlands with the boy. While there we saw many Purple Gallinules 20-30, an immature Least Bittern, a Solitary Sandpiper, and a handful of warblers including BT Blues and Magnolias along with the common "winter fare".
Most interesting for us though, was the opportunity to compare Purple Gallinules and Purple Swamphen side by side. I was able to get good digiscoped photos of both and even shot a little "video-scoped" movie through the scope of the Swamphen feeding. As Bill Pranty described in his article which appeared in Birding magazine a few years back, I was able to clearly study and document the differences in feeding styles between the native Gallinule and the much larger Swamphen.
Old hat for those of you in the Lauderdale area, but it was a novel/fun experience for me and Austin. I wrote a little blurb in my birding blog complete with images and video clip here:
http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/leica/
and for those wanting to see all of the images from the day you can visit my photo sharing site here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16435490@N00/
Hope all are well and having a good season!
Jeff Bouton (still alive and birding)
Port Charlotte, FL
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