We drove over to the Venice Rookery. This is a small park-like area very near the local Target, Walmart, numerous other big box stores and small retail strip malls. It is protected by the local very active Audubon Society. It is a very popular place for bird watching because the rookery is a little island in a very small pond, easily accessed by road. The pond is open and easily circumnavigated on foot, and the island is about 25 yards from the shore. Most often we have seen rookeries that we had to kayak to, or that you can't see without binoculars due to the distance.
What a sight. There were nests and chicks of great blue herons, little blue herons, great egrets, snowy egrets, night herons and anhingas - at least 100 nesting birds at our morning visit. There was also an alligator lurking on the island just below all the nesting birds. We were told by an Audubon volunteer that there are three alligators in this small pond. I would imagine that an occasional chick falls out or gets pushed out of a nest and the alligator scoops it up. Certainly all of the nests and roosting birds are well above the opportunistic alligators.
The Audubon volunteer suggested that we might like to come back in the evening to see hundreds of other birds come in to roost for the night, and so that is what we did last evening at sunset. It seemed like every heron, ibis and anhinga for miles around chose this island to come to for the night, whether they are nesting or not. In addition to the birds listed previously, there were also a hundred or more glossy and white ibises, and a few cattle egrets coming in. It was like watching tourists checking into a hotel for the night. We actually wondered if the "hotel" was going to fill up. It seemed like a very social time, and certainly the birds go there because there must be safety in numbers - statistically they have a better shot at survival.
The island at sunset
During the day
My camera does not do justice to showing the number of birds at this rookery. There were many nests hidden inside as well as at the outer edges of the shrubbery.
Then we drove over to the Sarasota County Environmental Services location, aka Landfill, aka Pinelands Reserve. The Venice Area Audubon Society also maintains this reserve. It is a bizarre combination of a huge active landfill (aka garbage dump), and wetlands preserve. Apparently Sarasota County purchased over 6,000 acres in order to mitigate the impact of the landfill on the watershed and the wildlife in the area. They have been extraordinarily successful in protecting the wildlife.
After checking in at the landfill office, visitors are allowed to drive the perimeter of the landfill area which puts them at the margin of the preserve on one side of the road with the designated landfill area on the other side.
As one drives the road (you are not allowed to leave your car), just about every bird that calls Florida home can or could be seen. I checked off 30 species of birds on my bird checklist given to us at the office including (but not limited to) roseate spoonbills, wood storks, ibises, herons, egrets, thousands of black vultures, white and brown pelicans, sandhill cranes, the common ground dove, black-bellied whistling ducks, laughing gulls, crows, wild turkeys, an eagle, a beautiful red-shouldered hawk, an American kestrel, possibly a peregrine falcon, crows, and mockingbirds. In addition we saw close to a hundred adult wild pigs (boars) with hundreds of babies, right by the road, but on the other side of the chain link fence, and many deer. The pigs are a real nuisance here. They are not native to Florida and have been very successful. They are very hard on the plant life due to the rooting around that they do. I don't know if this preserve has a program to control the population or not. Other areas we've been in do have control programs.
Here are a couple of photos. Really hard to photograph and it was raining, making it almost impossible.
Wood storks
Wild pigs (boars)
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