[Updated Thursday, March 10, 4:49pm]
Sunday, March 6, 2022, was a walking day for me. I walked X2 (the hourglass), 5.4 miles, and counted birds.
I got home ~11:40am. I cooled down starting the NYT xword puzzle, and then entering the bird counts into ebird.org. I showered, shaved (1st of 4 nights of jams), ate lunch, and was back out in 1 of the comfy chairs on the lanai by 2ish to finish the xword puzzle. I was there until ~5, when I went in to eat supper before going to Jimmy Allen's Beach Box jam.
Straight on I noticed a spontaneously organized hunting group on the other (east) side of Lake #1: 2 tricolor herons, 1 great egret, & 1 double-crested cormorant about 15' offshore. Normally I think that means they're herding a school of minnows between them & feeding. The cormorant was diving frequently, the waders weren't making many strikes.
Then, a great blue heron flew in. It flew right at the great egret - I think just to tell it "Hey - notice that I'm bigger than you." - and then landed and joined the group.
Next - weird, this really seemed incongrous - ~2 minutes later, a brown pelican comes in from the north & lands in Lake #1 10' from the cormorant. That seemed to throw the others off, they kind of disbanded.
The pelican was around 3x on Sunday. On my IslandWalk birding walks, I have seen pelicans dive for fish ~20x. They normally dive from 15-20' straight down, & just before their bill hits the water, they fold their wings completely back.
This guy was flying 5-6' above the lake and then making a 30 degree dive over a distance of 10-12'. I don't think it had near the speed when it hit the water as with the straight down dive, but out of maybe 5 tries, it caught fish at least 2x.
A 2nd cormorant showed up, & the 2 of them were diving pretty regularly. Whenever they dove, a tricolored heron and a snowy egret flew to their location and swooped to the water, particularly when a cormorant surfaced. My guess, trying to steal a fish the cormorant might expose in its bill. Theory #2, trying to grab fish fleeing towards the surface to escape the cormorant.
Note, re stealing freshly caught fish from a bird smaller than you, within the last year or so I saw a good sized osprey, with a good sized (18") fish in its talons, flying north over Lake #1 with a great blue heron right on its tail. The heron liked the looks of that fish.A kingfisher took 1 dive out in front of me. They dive like the odd pelican, from ~5-6' off the water, on a 30 degree angle. Frequently they will dive again ~6' away. A few weeks ago I saw 1 make 6 straight dives.
Twice I was treated to an extended period of song from a shrike in our live oak tree. Their songs are mostly 2 note, repetitive, & sweet. They have a good number of them. I taped 5-6 different shike songs a few weeks ago. I think this 1 today was singing some new songs.
4ish, an osprey flew in from the south, with a bald eagle ~30' behind it. I have 2x in the last few weeks seen a bald eagle attack & drive off an osprey. They flew up to the north end of Lake #1, then turned around and flew back south, the bald eagle in the lead?!?!?
Just after, had an anhinga drying its wings on the other bank maybe 30' north.
No ducks swimming on Lake #1, but 3x pairs flew south over the lake.
Next day, Monday, March 7, 2022, I was reading on the lanai after lunch. The pelican was back. Same diving style. It got 1 fish.
There was more shrike song, & then there were 2 shrike chasing each other around the live oak tree. 1 (the male?), did 80% of the pursuing, but the other (the female?) also did some pursuing. Looked like courtship, I think we will have shrike nesting in the live oak again, as they did 2 yrs ago.
A bluejay was in the live oak 1x, the shrike weren't offended? There were 2 mockingbirds drinking from (& pollinating) the bird of paridise tree on the south side of our cage. A shrike flew towards them & they flew off to the northwest with the shrike following/pursuing?
Later there was a very creative mockingbird singing from the live oak. I recorded a bit of it.
Here's the bird of paradise, on the right, with our neighbor's live oak behind it. To its left is a pigmy date palm stand, then a very hardy shrub I wish I knew the name of, then our live oak.
Had 1 glossy ibis on the east bank today. The white ibis are generally 10x as common as the glossy, but I have 1-2x counted 10 or so glossy ibis.
At least 1 pair of mottled ducks swimming.
Re "spontaneously organized hunting group" ...
I think this was in December, 2010-11 or so, observed several x. There would be 50 or so waders working the shore, & 20-30 divers working 10-15' offshore. I always presumed they had a school of minnows or fish between them, & the fish would flee from peril to peril, & the birds would be dining well. The waders: great egret, snowy egret, great blue heron, tricolored heron, little blue heron, 1x a wood stork. Divers: lesser scaup, ringnecked duck, hooded merganser, pie-billed grebe. Unbelievable, 10 species (of dinosaurs) spontaneously working together so that everybody eats. The human race should be so inclusive.
[Updated 2022-03-08]
There was a squirrel in the live oak. A shrike ran it off. It chased it out on a limb from which the squirrel crossed to the palm tree.
Here's the live oak and the palm.
[Updated 2022-03-10]
For the 2nd time in a few weeks, we had a great egret eating a lizard just under the live oak. I have over the years seen the great egrets come up by people's houses. I thought they were curious - nope, they were lizard hunting. Here's the video:
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