Great White Pelican, Here We Go Again!

Great White Pelican, Sanibel, FL 2016, ©Lillian Stokes

Great White Pelican, Sanibel, FL 2016 ©Lillian Stokes

Great White Pelican, Merritt Island, FL 2020 ©Kristina Fisher

Here we go again! A Great White Pelican (a species found in Africa, Asia and Europe) showed up Thursday at Merritt Island, FL. Experts are trying to determine if this is the same Great White Pelican that showed up at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel FL in Feb. 2016, 2017 and 2019. The Sanibel sightings were rejected by the Florida Ornithological Society as a first North American record even though there was no evidence that this was a bird escaped from captivity in the U.S. Experts keep track of that plus this bird had no bands. Will this open the case again? Amazingly this new sighting, as with previous sightings, had the Great White Pelican showing up the same month, February, in the company of American White Pelicans. The photo on top I took at Ding Darling in Feb. 2016, the photo on bottom was taken by Kristina Fisher Thursday at Merritt Island. Stay tuned. To see my blog post on the Sanibel bird go,

https://stokesbirdingblog.blogspot.com/search…

 

Short-eared Owl, Wonderful Winter Owl!

Thinking about winter owls. Here's a Short-eared Owl I saw several years ago in Salisbury Beach, MA on Christmas day. What a gift! This wonderful owls breeds across all of Canada and AK and the uppermost part of the West, but winters across most of the U.S. in grasslands and open areas where they hunt voles and mice.

Happy National Bird Day!

Happy National Bird Day! Celebrate birds, protect birds, go birding, feed birds and most of all enjoy birds! I chose to show this Hairy Woodpecker at a feeder because that is the way the majority of Americans interact with birds.

Purple Sandpiper, winters in New England

Sweet Purple Sandpipers are a wintering sandpiper here in New England. They breed in the tundra and winter on the rocky Atlantic Coast. Some may migrate through Greenland and winter in Europe. Not very purple but beautiful to see against the ocean landscape.

Carolina Wren First Bird of 2020, What's Yours?

Carolina Wren was my first bird of 2020. Sign of the times and the warming climate as this species has been moving its range northward, also helped by bird feeders. What was your first bird of 2020?