Besides the preening ibis, I saw other birds at Epcot the other day.
Right after I got out of the car, a monorail sped by the parking lot. It honked at a Great Egret that was loafing on the track. The bird squawked and flew over to the other track.
In Future World, Arthur and I stopped to watch a gospel choir singing holiday music. They were just barely loud enough to drown out the boisterious Common Grackles that were perched in the trees behind the choir stage. I know Common Grackles are in Florida all year, but I hadn’t seen much of them until a few weeks ago, and these were the first ones I’d seen at Epcot. (We just had a few visit our back yard feeders this week for the first time, too.)
A lot of the birds at this theme park hang out around the World Showcase Lagoon, a small body of water around which the country pavilions are located. That’s where I saw the ibis, and where I found this lone Anhinga chillaxing on a “pier.”
The White Ibis from the previous blog post was just one of a larger, loosely-formed flock. Most of the other birds were foraging or dozing.
By the Mexico pavilion I stopped to watch a large flock of American Crows flying between trees, perhaps preparing to roost for the night. I also exchanged looks with a Ring-billed Gull. You can see the crows as blurry dots in the background of this picture.
A flock of somethings flew overhead. Without my binoculars, I wasn’t positive of their identification; my camera helped me see they were Sandhill Cranes.
Once, during a fireworks show at Magic Kingdom, we saw a Great Horned Owl leave its roost tree for the night. That was very exciting. It unfortunately remains my only owl sighting at a Disney park so far. Well, besides these.
I always enjoy spending a day at one of the Disney parks (I better – we have season tickets!). Birds make everything better, though, and that’s good, because I’ll never stop watching them. 🙂
