Early December 2021, sightings


Orchid Bee, in a Pineneedle butterfly garden.

This post is a collection of recent sightings in Wildewood. 

As I headed out for a walk this morning, Pat told me about the Barred Owl swooping over her to land on Nadia's courtyard wall. This week. A little later on the walk, Michael said he woke his wife to listen with him to two Barred Owls caterwauling in Springlakes. 

Daily I see warblers in the Laurel Oak canopy behind our place.

An early morning sunrise on a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. A male.


And a female.

In the same tree.


A Wood Stork and an American Fish Crow sharing a Norway Pine treetop. I knew it was a Fish Crow by its call.


A Red-Shouldered Hawk calling and calling. Tom was walking home from laps at the pool and heard it. I checked, and here hawk is:

Calling to who? I found them both here. Looks like it's find a mate season.

On Thanksgiving day, Marc Holtsberg sent this photo - an American Bald Eagle, taken in our neighborhood.

And, a few days ago, he photographed a juvenile American Bald Eagle in the Springlakes area off of Wildewood Drive. 


An Orchid Bee - a living jewel! 


On the big pond, a lot of Wood Storks following the rules. Looks like that Great Blue Heron has a mind of its own as it heads to the pond.


This is how some of our shell-back neighbors greet each other. Peninsula Cooters.


Birds are habitual. So, if you see a hummingbird at a particular place at a particular time of day, try again the next day. Chances are you'll get another sighting. This Osprey is on a Slash Pine branch many mornings I walk - I watch it leave to then grab a fish from the pond behind Tidewater.


Tricolored Heron, last of the molt.