My husband and I , our 2 cats and one dog, live on the Hillsborough River in Seminole Heights (smack in the middle of suburbia), Tampa. Our property is an acre and a quarter, and behind the house, there are 2 distinct wetland areas before the rise at the river. Our property is one of the few along the river that was never cleared and filled, so it serves as a miniature nature preserve showing how this whole area once looked like.
My parents bought the property in 1963 from Mrs. Rohrer, who was a lively 90 yo retired botanist. She had done experiments with plants for the Agricultural Department, so along with the many native plants; there are some unusual examples as well. She decided to sell her place to my parents because my mother was an amateur horticulturalist and mom loved everything about the place, including how wild it was and promised Mrs. Rohrer we would never fill in the wetland areas. We added to her house, and moved here in 1964, and I have been fascinated with the flora and fauna ever since.
This blog is to share my love for this unique piece of Florida, and to document the various critters and plants that grow, live and/or visit our tiny wetland.
I'll start by introducing Chester and the gang, he lives here with Greta and their current brood of 3- they are Barred owls (Strix varia), and Chester and Greta have lived in our backyard for the past 6 years. Chester is somewhat human habituated, so I have been able to take many great photos of him because he really could care less. Greta and the kids are a little harder to capture images of as they are much shyer. This is the first year I have seen (or heard) babies. The youngsters have a very distinct whine, sound sample here-
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/sounds/Owl_Barred_Baby.mp3
Chester, looking for lunch
oh my goodness, how cute is that!
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