Phil Lanoue Photography

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the marsh and best wishes for a healthy happy New Year!

You Know Him…You Love Him…You Miss Him…

I thought at this time of year, it might be nice to revisit our favorite grumpy pink bird from this past summer. In these never before seen photos from a warm morning in August, we have the salt marsh resident spoonbill starting right off giving us his best “I’m so cute” look.

As he continues his patrol among the oyster beds he stops to snatch up a tiny glass shrimp while an ibis nabs himself a small crab. A great blue heron casts a wary eye on our pink friend until finally it’s time for spoonie to leave and continue on with his day.

I hope you enjoyed this look back at some summer moments from the salt marsh!

A Friendly Visit

I wasn’t the only one that noticed this alligator relaxing on a mud bog in the swamp. A pair of coots showed up and decided to get out of the water as well and join our gator friend. At first the coots appeared a little confused and did not seem to be sure what to make of this funny looking ‘log’ that was just laying there. However they quickly became rather excited which attracted the attention of a third coot that came floating over to see what all the fuss was about.

Notice how the alligator does his best to completely ignore the coots throughout the entire event. He was likely just hoping for a quiet morning so he could get in a nice nap but instead had to contend with yacking coots creating an unwanted commotion!

Time To Leave

Recently I was watching this bald eagle sitting in a pine tree, and I suspected he had other business to take care of and would soon be leaving his tree. Once I saw the ‘look’ I knew he was planning to jump off, so I grabbed a few quick shots as he left the area.

Mrs. Merganser and Friend

This past week I was surprised to see this solitary female merganser duck picking around among the duckweed in the swamp. I usually see mergansers in pairs or small groups, rarely alone. But it turns out that Mrs. Merganser was not alone…she had a turtle friend sitting on a log out there also enjoying the late morning sun!

Too Close

One of the standard wildlife photographer laments is that the subjects just are not close enough. I myself have been in that situation many times where I wish I could move in closer, I wish the animal would come in closer, or I wish I had a much longer lens.

However that was not the case yesterday afternoon when seemingly out of nowhere an osprey with a fresh caught fish came suddenly swooping in right over my head. The only problem for me was that he was too close! As you can see I clipped the wings off of the osprey with my camera lens as I was taking the overhead flight shots.

I suppose I can’t complain too much though, at least I did get an up close and personal view of a very cool bird!

Man Of Mystery

Just prior to sunset yesterday in the salt marsh, a great blue heron was striking a mysterious looking pose with just his face being lit by the last bit of sunshine falling on the reeds.

Snowys Being Snowys

Yesterday afternoon a couple of snowy egrets were among the crowd over in the salt marsh during low tide. But of course, as is typical of snowys, they are rarely capable of getting along with one another.

When this one aggressive snowy arrived he proceeded to run off his friend that was quietly feeding and minding his own business. Naturally that was not enough, he couldn’t just run off the other snowy, he had to turn it into and full out airborne chase across the marsh.

Once he was satisfied that he successfully managed to claim sole ownership of the fishing spot, it was time for a well deserved fluff up to congratulate himself on a job well done!