Last week, I retrieved a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX220 10x optical zoom camera from the back of the closet. It hadn't been used in six years. It's smaller than a cell phone and takes good hand-held pictures using the auto settings. I started shooting pictures of wildlife in the creek on Farragut Drive. Some of my favorites were published last week (click here). Today's new images include mallard ducks, roseate spoonbills, a turtle, a great blue heron, some larger fish, an ibis, wood storks, a tricolored heron, and a great egret.
The creek on Farragut Drive in the Azalea neighborhood was once called Golf Creek. It was a water feature on the Jungle Country Club golf course (1916-1944). Many celebrities and notables of the era crossed the creek while golfing here ‒ Hall of Fame golfers Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen, Hall of Fame baseball players Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx, Yankee manager Miller Huggins, St. Petersburg mayor Al Lang (who was president of the country club for most of its existence), H. Walter Fuller, Walter P. Fuller, baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, football coach Pop Warner, defense attorney Clarence Darrow, golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast, cartoonist Billy DeBeck, sportswriter Grantland Rice and many others.
In the 1950's, the residential development Azaleaville was built on the Jungle Country Club golf course property. Today, the creek is the only part of the former golf course that is public land. Residents are proposing that the creek, which does not have an official name, be named Jungle Country Club Creek. For more information, click here.
Since the creek's inception in 1916, it has been a favored spot for people and wildlife, as seen in the photos.
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| Wood storks, roseate spoonbill, tricolored heron. |
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| Ibis near the creek. |
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| Turtles are difficult to photograph. They submerge when they see me coming. Too fast for me. |
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| Great blue heron. |
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| Great egret. |
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| Large fish (possibly mullet?) near the mouth of the creek at Boca Ciega Bay, visiting during high tide. |
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| Roseate spoonbill with mallard ducks. |
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| Male and female mallard. |
