Sunday, January 03, 2016

New Years Eve With Birds In The Cedar Key Cemetery




In Cedar Key, the most desirable and highest island land is reserved for the dead. The cemetery is beautiful with views of the saltmarsh that surrounds it and has beautiful old pines, cedars, and oaks shading the monuments to past lives.

On this last day of 2015, I did not come to honor the dead, but to seek the living. An old cemetery like this preserves not only human memories, but the natural habitat that birds, both locals and snowbirds, need for their survival.
In an old forested cemetery,unlike the modern golf course lawn version with few trees, the dead protect the living.

The cemetery tree canopy was jumping with life, unlike the ground below. Warblers, woodpeckers, mockingbirds, doves, ... the trees were fairly twitching with birds...e
specially these Pine Warblers.













Full disclosure: I hit the saturation button a little too hard on this shot, but he was in the brightest light and impressively yellow ... just in a little more unsaturated way :)

This feels like the arrangement in an Audubon painting.

There were other birds in the cemetery and surrounding marsh, but this post belongs to the LGB's.


9 comments:

Julie Zickefoose said...

I'm better-rounded than I thought. When I read "This post belongs to the LGB's," I thought, "Lesbian, gay, bisexuals?"
Little green birds?
hee hee hee!
I like it when a. you post and b. you aim that lens at warblers. What fun! And oh, that blue sky dappling through. Gimme some of that.

More graves, pls.

Zick

Miz S said...

"...the dead protect the living." Such a beautiful way to see it and say it. Thanks, FC.

threecollie said...

Wow, what a cool place, and great birds! Folks at the boat launch tried to direct us to the cemetery so we could go birding there, but we never found it. A Pine Warbler would be a lifer for me.

Wally Jones said...

Graveyards are one of the best kept birding secrets around. Well, past tense, now, I reckon.
Nice photos, all! I love it when the Pine Warblers invade each year.

I need to figure out how to rig my bathroom mirror with a saturation button so I can adjust my daily color....

Rebecca said...

I was thinking of spending my first post-retirement month (January 2017) in a rental on Cedar Key--you may have finalized the decision for me.

Marilyn Kircus said...

I love to bird in cemeteries also. And I love pine warblers but only heard ONE on three Christmas counts that should have had them. So thanks for sharing yours.

Lisa at Greenbow said...

I was wondering where all our pine warblers were hanging out this winter. Great shots.

Mark P said...

I really liked this post. Very nice.

maikaljj said...

Thank you I am glad about the encouragement! I love your site, you post outstanding.Click Here