Jan. 29, 2016---Peaceful Waters Sanctuary:

Peaceful Waters Sanctuary is a 30 acre wetlands park with 1,500 feet of elevated nature boardwalks and one mile of walking trails.  Originally I had asked my daughter if she wanted to go to Mounts Garden in West Palm Beach, then to Wakodahatchee Wetlands to look for birds.  Time to take up a new hobby, so I think I'll take up birding!  Anyway, she immediately said that she wanted to go and even suggested we hit up Peaceful Waters Sanctuary in Wellington, too, since she had read there were Roseate Spoonbills there.  I've not seen them anywhere before, so I was excited to go there, too, and hopefully see the Spoonbills.  We weren't disappointed!
There weren't many birds in the actual sanctuary,  but we enjoyed walking around the wetlands.

 People there told us there were a lot of birds there last week.  But we had really heavy rains the last couple of days---and 2 tornados---and many of the birds relocated to the water treatment area.  But we did see a few feathery friends in the ponds.  Like this green heron.

 another view of the sanctuary from the boardwalk.

 Always like seeing these colorful guys, too---Purple Gallinule.

 Wonder if this guy is vacationing from St. Louis?  There are a lot of red winged black birds there.

 I believe this is a northern mockingbird.   They are the state bird of Florida

Tri colored heron.

 spider lilies

great egret

 great blue heron

yellow rumped warbler?

more wide angle views of the wetlands or Peaceful Waters.

looking at the grassy walkway towards the boardwalk.

another grassy walkway

 There were a bunch of white pelicans, some unique ducks, and the spoonbills in the water treatment plant pond right next to the sanctuary.  We enjoyed the walk around the park and over to the fence of the water treatment plant.  There I was able to get pictures through the chain link fence of those birds.

roseate spoonbills

white pelicans

some kind of duck--hooded merganser?

good view of the spoonbills bill.

ibis and spoonbill

2 spoonbills, ibis and a snowey egret.

I found it interesting how the pelicans lift their wings when they put their heads in the water.

Looked like they were having lots of luck fishing, or whatever they were catching.

glossy ibises, snowy ibis and a spoonbill

close up of the snowy egret

lots of birds there.

some going this way and some going that way.

here they were on the side of the retention pond coming towards me.

This spoonbill was saying hi.

Greater Scaup or possibly lesser Scaup