mbelitz's Identifications

A solo visit after work; my first visit since the park reopened recently after extensive damage from Hurricane Idalia in Aug 2023, The park fee has been raised to $5 and the parking machines are gone, having been replaced by a friendly guy at the kiosk (and yes, they take debit cards). The park was packed with people, so I didn't expect many birds. The weather at the start was sunny, 82 degrees ("feels like" 82), and breezy. I walked to the new observation platform and then noticed a small flock of shorebirds at the very northwestern corner of the park, so I went. The light was absolutely dreadful, but I did not edit the photographs taken here. Then I walked to the small mangrove forest at the northeastern corner of the park. I found a cooperative Northern Waterthrush here, which was a new photographed bird for my Hernando County list -- as was a European Starling 20 minutes later! Some of these images have been lightened for identification purposes (they literally were just silhouettes). I tracked a buckeye that flew by but did not land because I wondered about it being a Tropical Mangrove Buckeye, but it finally landed and I got one photograph, which proved it to be a Common Buckeye. I left at 1450 and headed home.