The WFSU Ecology Blog
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Tate’s Hell & the Apalachicola River Delta |...
Kayak Scouting Mission on the Ochlockonee Water Trail
Merritt’s Mill Pond | Kayaking and Spring Caves

The WFSU Ecology Blog

  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • Observations From the Field
      • White Pelicans Visit Dr. Charles L. Evans Pond in Tallahassee
      • An April Walk at Ochlockonee River WMA
      • Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • In Their Words: Black Legacy Communities in North Florida
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Aucilla/ Wacissa Watershed
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
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      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • The Seasonality of Bees (and Bee Plants) in North Florida
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
      • Flies of North Florida are More Diverse than You’d Think
      • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
      • Devil’s Walkingstick: Your New Favorite Thorny Pollinator Plant?
      • Florida Native Milkweed | Tips for Growing Your Monarch Friendly Garden
      • Mistletoe | A Parasite for the Holidays (But Maybe We Like it Anyway?)
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources

Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park

by Rob Diaz de Villegas March 2, 2022
Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park

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Here’s a Florida habitat outside of the WFSU viewing area. We were visiting my father-in-law in Tampa about a week before Covid shut a lot of things down. This was a nice little surprise on the way to to the kids’ first Disney trip- a virgin slash pine forest full of nesting ospreys, great horned owls, and bald eagles.

Honeymoon Island is four miles long. Facing the Gulf of Mexico are beaches and dunes, a nesting habitat for shorebirds. Behind the dunes are old growth, fire dependent slash pines. Some of the trees here are almost 200 years old, which is old for slash pine (longleaf can reach 500). We saw very little of the beach, opting for a hike along Osprey Trail.

It doesn’t take long to crack the the trail’s name:

Osprey on nest, Honeymoon Island State Park, Florida.
Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) on nest, Honeymoon Island State Park, Florida.

It just happened to be nesting season for the raptor species on the island. On the short section of the trail loop we walked, we saw numerous osprey nests, and ospreys enjoying a recent catch.

Osprey eats fish on a slash pine.
Osprey eats fish on a slash pine.
Two ospreys around a nest, Honeymoon Island State Park.
One osprey on a nest and another nearby- a breeding couple?
Osprey on slash pine at Honeymoon Island State Park.
Osprey with fish Honeymoon Island State Park.

Great Horned Owl Nest

Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) watches over nearby nest in Honeymoon Island State Park.
Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) watches over nearby nest.

I spent some time under this owl, which didn’t look awake most of the time. Every once in a while, though, she looked over towards this nest:

Nestlings in a great horned owl nest.
Nestlings in a great horned owl nest.
Nestlings in a great horned owl nest.
Nestlings in a great horned owl nest.

There were more than one in there, but only one kept its head up long enough for a photo.

Bald Eagle Nest

Bald eagle (Haliaetus leucocephalus) over its nest.
Bald eagle (Haliaetus leucocephalus) over its nest.

I don’t have much of a photo here. These eagles became more obscured by the tree and nest as you walked closer to them. I have a further away shot where you can see both eagles, but I feel like in this one you can really see the size of the nest. Seeing an eagle’s nest in person is awe inspiring- the things are huge.

We may not have seen the young eagle in the nest on this day, but one week later, I did get to see one on the shores of St. Vincent Island.

Downy Woodpecker Nesting?

Downy woodpecker by a cavity in slash pine.
Downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) by a cavity in slash pine.

Not a raptor, but who doesn’t like a woodpecker? Publishing this two years later, I can’t say I remember if this was a dead or living tree. Downy woodpeckers, all woodpeckers aside from red cockaded woodpeckers, make their nests in dead wood. At the very least, right where this branch has broken off there seems to be some dead wood for the woodpecker to work on a nesting cavity:

Downy woodpecker in a cavity, in slash pine.
Downy woodpecker in a cavity, in slash pine.

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More Observations From the Field

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iNaturalist

iNaturalist became a part of the WFSU Ecology Blog during the EcoCitizen Project in 2019.  Since then, we’ve used it to help identify the many plants and animals we see on our shoots.  And on the Backyard Blog, we show how it can be used to identify weeds and garden insects, to help figure out what’s beneficial or a possible pest.  Below is the iNaturalist profile belonging to WFSU Ecology producer Rob Diaz de Villegas.

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