I spent my off-Friday morning with the baby Limpkins at the Circle B Bar Reserve.  I headed out to the Wading Bird Way trail at sunrise.  There were too many clouds for an impressive sunrise, but as I watched the light rising, I heard the baby Limpkins.  I watched and waited, and within fifteen minutes they had left the cover of their bushes and emerged onto the trail.  I spent several hours on the trail with them, and for the first time, got a few pictures of them with a decent sun angle.

There were four baby Limpkins originally, but now there are only two left.  Two weeks ago I watched three of them take a trip on the “Circle B water slide” (the water flowing through the culverts underneath the trail).  Today the two remaining babies swam by the culverts and started to get pulled under by the current, but now they are big enough to swim against the water and free themselves.

The babies are big enough now that their parents don’t stay with them all the time.  But Mom did show up from time to time with a tasty apple snail snack.  Then the babies fought with each other over who got to eat it.  They were so funny to watch as they fussed at each other!

The little guys can’t fly yet, but they are sure curious about those wings.  I spent a good part of the morning moving up and down the trail with them, trying to keep ahead of them so that I could get pictures of their faces instead of their bird-butts.  It seemed like I was always behind them when they flapped their wings!  So here’s my best wing-flap shot.

There’s going to be a cold front moving through this weekend, hopefully bringing a nice crowd of warblers and other migrants! I’m looking forward to the pictures… :)

Bird Species List (17 total): White Ibis, Anhinga, Black-Bellied Whistling Duck, Black-Crowned Night Heron, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Blue-Winged Teal, Common Gallinule, Double-Crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Limpkin (babies!), Little Blue Heron, Pied-Billed Grebe, Red-winged Blackbird, Tricolored Heron, Wood Duck, Wood Stork