Phil Lanoue Photography

Dinner Rudely Interrupted

Last night in the salt marsh the always entertaining snowy egrets were among the birds feeding at low tide. At one point the snowy on the left had just pulled a small fish out of the shallow pool of water and was in the process of eating it when he got jumped from behind by a jealous competitor. Trying to run and swallow while being chased by an angry, fluffed up aggressor is no fun for sure, but so it goes in the snowy egret world where every meal is a potential adventure!

Evening Activity In The Marsh

Here is a sample of some of the activity that took place during the evening this past weekend. We had some of the usual suspects such as great blue herons, wood storks, and spoonbills. But there were a few surprises as well, such as this clapper rail that plucked itself a crab out of the salt marsh, and the white pelicans pictured were among a group of 40 that flew over the marsh. And of course our good friend Mr. A was out gliding along in the pond at sunset. I saw him being silhouetted by the warm gold and orange colors of the setting sunlight.

Leaving So Soon?!

Last night was cloudy and overcast and just when it was starting to get dark our cranky pink friend arrived and started to feed. There also happened to be an egret in the same area and they got along just fine for a while until the egret apparently had enough and decided he needed to immediately leave the area. The spoonbill seemed a bit shocked that anyone wouldn’t want to hang around with him for the evening…especially since he’d been working on his social skills and was finally learning to coexist well with other birds! And even worse…poor spoonie seemed lonely and forlorn over having been abandoned.

Wood Storks In Love

Last night in the salt marsh a large crowd of wood storks came in at one point to feed during low tide. The storks were behaving in their usual manner…sticking their bills in the water trying to grab fish, and fussing and squabbling with one another at the same time. This pair however were not involved in any of that, they only had eyes for each other. They spent their time grooming and nuzzling and seemed to be seriously in love. 🙂

Some of you may remember the photos from earlier this month of the pair of amorous wood storks canoodling in a pine tree. Could this be the same pair?! It’s possible, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I can say this is definitely not the usual wood stork behavior we normally see, so these two really stood out.

Nice View From Up There

Earlier this week everyone’s favorite cranky spoonbill was hanging around in the salt marsh by himself but something seemed different about him. He had a kind of playful attitude rather then his former grumpy demeanor which wasn’t making him any friends. Then he did something unexpected…he turned and looked toward an old tree stump that is always sticking out there at low tide and did sort of a quick hop flight and landed on the stump.

He stood around on the stump for a few minutes surveying his marsh kingdom then concluded all was well and it was now time to leave. He took flight across the marsh then did a wide circle in the opposite direction and flew against the trees at the far back edge heading south to continue on with his day.

Blue Crab Special

Yesterday afternoon we were watching a few white ibis fishing in the salt marsh (along with our resident grumpy spoonbill, but more on that later) and were very surprised to see this ibis snag a large blue crab. White ibis generally feed on small fish, eels and various marine crustaceans such as little crabs.

This ibis was not at all intimidated by the size of it’s catch, it proceeded to systematically dismantle the crab by snapping off it’s legs one by one. Once the legs are gone the ibis will shake and crunch the remaining portion of the unfortunate crab, and then dine on the yummy insides. After reducing the large crab to a compact piece, the ibis decided to walk over to a more secluded area of the marsh as his friends had begun to pay too much attention to the action!

The Lazy Gator

Earlier this week a young alligator was floating around in the salt marsh and I was surprised to see him not wildly sloshing after the fish like they normally do. This one just seemed to be taking it easy, gliding in and around the dried reeds and enjoying a relaxing swim. He did make a few minor grabs at some fish and swallowed a bunch at one point but I knew what he was doing, he was employing the lazy gator method of fishing. He would lay there with the bottom portion of his mouth open under the water and if some poor unfortunate fish happened to swim in well… that was fine, but this boy was not going to put a lot of effort into it at all.

Bath Time For Spoonie

Yesterday afternoon we saw this spoonbill in the marsh pond who decided it was the perfect time to take a nice bath. It splashed around in the water for a while then proceeded to dry off it’s wings and preen it’s feathers. I think he cleaned up quite nicely! 🙂