Lunchtime Birding Around the Neighborhood

Had a little adventure today on my lunch break.

Lakeside Birding

I live in Central FL, and there are numerous lakes around me. It's even reflected in the name of the city where I live: Lakeland. We don't even have the most I think. BUT: we do have some top quality places to go birding in the city limits.

Recently, I've been on an eBird kick where I bird the various lakes in the area. The goal is to fill in as many "grey spots" on my eBird bar chart. I've rounded out several of the "Lakes" and am actively working on a couple more. My favorite part about this is in the fall when I can get several warbler species around the lakes. I look for the oak trees, and the trees closest to the water. That seems to be my best winning strategy. Strange duck season is also interesting! Recently, we had a very interesting looking duck that may have been a Lesser Scaup X Tufted duck hybrid, or was at least a crazy looking Lesser Scaup.

Here's an aerial photograph showing Lake Morton, and some of the places that I have found are highlight places where I find different birds. In this map i was illustrating a route that I took on my lunch break (the blue line). The green circles are some places where I found some great birds at that time, including warblers that hadn't been seen there before. The orange circles are also places I've noticed other warblers/neotropical migrants.

When you bird here, check out Lake Morton, give it an hour. It can surprise you. Also, I'm working on a couple videos that will cover what's going on at the spots around the Lakes of Lakeland.

Future lakes I will be covering in videos and in Posts:

Lake Mirror, 

Lake Wire,

Lake Beulah,

Lake Hunter,

Lake Parker,

Lake Hollingsworth.

All these lakes are in Lakeland, and worth their own visit. I'm still learning how to bird them, so it will be neat to follow along my befuddlement.

You should at least get a laugh!