The Florida chickens are coming!

Do they hang around near water? Can you get a closer pic (with the beak shape)? Those things help with identification. You know, in case you accidentally call one Fred but the name is really Stan.

Haha Fred and Stan would fit right in here in St. Pete.

I’m ten minutes from the bay but I never see them near the water, too hard to get a close-up, they take off quick.

Okay I found one online, they're called White Ibis.

http://www.howardsview.com/Florida/WhiteIbisJul10-02_jpg_view.htm

WOW, look at that orange. Ibis makes me think of Egypt.

The most exciting bird I've seen around here is a redwing blackbird.


I'll tell my mother you saw an Ibis - she's a birder and loves hearing such things, even though she doesn't know you. It's vicarious birding, I suppose.

One time back in Venice, I saw a gorgeous sight - a Coral Tree in bloom (lots of coral flowers, not much then in the way of leaves) with something like twenty snowy egrets perched in it. I took a photo but I can't find it now. I remember that the photo was nowhere near as gorgeous as the tree and the birds.


I don't remember if the tree was an Erythrina coralloides or caffra.


snowy egret

We have a lot of neat birds in Florida. Every now and then a flock of small green parrots land in the trees around the house, they are actually very loud but don’t hang around long because of the dogs. I couldn’t find them online, probably not native birds.

Yeh. Lots of escaped pet parrots around. We had some in Venice, and there was a famous colony of them up in San Francisco.

That flaming coral-colored tree is called a Jacaranda. It's such a glorious addition to the landscape here in so FL. I almost applauded when I saw my first Jacaranda tree when I moved here in March 2010.

That green bird is called the Quaker Parrot or parakeet, Monk parrot or parakeet:

http://www.wildparrotsny.com/index/breedfacts.html
The Ibis is one of the more common sites here in FL, too. They're everywhere here. It sounds similar to Isis, the Egyptian goddess ... the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic.

Er, no it isn't. I know the trees well. I'm just not positive of the Erythrina I saw with the birds, whether if was caffra or coralloides, since I don't remember and don't still have the photo. I used to specify these trees.
Anyway, the tree in the photo is from a knowledgeable site.

Jacs have lavender purpley flowers. I know them well too.

Sorry for misleading. You're right. I confused myself. Jacs are pretty purplish but grow to that height, too.

Here's some Jacs -
Jacaranda mimosafolia


People in LA tended to love or hate them, as the flower drop would get on their cars..

I love both trees.

I'm orig from Boston and New England so I feel so joyous as I've been starved for color. The fact that this tree has such colorful blossoms is reason to celebrate.

That's ok. Plant material was part of my business for 25 years and I can be wrong too, including about trees I thought I knew but got confused. And that was mostly in one metro area, albeit a very large and climate diverse area. Then I moved north and had to learn a whole new batch of plants. Then I moved to Albuquerque, and I say to myself, that's a nice tree, wonder what it is. Ok, I know a few of them, but I've lost my zeal for constant i.d.ing.

At least in design, you have to not only know the i.d., you have to know the trees' needs, its growth behavior, root behavior, tendency to pests, on and on. Even though I knew trees, I always read up again before specifying. Just before I left Venice, a large and powerful volunteer group was putting in street trees in a big campaign. I was the only one who refused to sign the sheet because I knew the trees picked for our street were wrong, and said so - they need at least twelve feet of planting parkway, where our street had 30 or so inches. When I go back there to visit, the trees are growing badly, including in front of my old house where the new owner must have ok'd the tree.

Bowing y limbs to your expertise. I knew I should have thought first before I replied. That's proof that I don't know Jac!

They're adorable. Must be related to storks and all.

On Isis, I know not much, except that the rather beautiful church in Rome, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva was built ".. directly over (sopra) the foundations of a temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis, but erroneously ascribed to the Greco-Roman goddess Minerva." (wiki). If I remember, not directly over but sort of.

See, I can make a tangent out of anything.
Adds, I've never seen an Ibis, that I know of. Maybe in an aviary, but probably not.

Ha ha!

The ibis has a longish curved orange-yellowish beak.

Sounds neat.