Phil Lanoue Photography

“You Can’t Have Any!”

Earlier this week a snowy egret plucked himself a nice shrimp out of the salt marsh during low tide.

At first the snowy was calmly eating his appetizer until a pesky ibis moved in acting all curious about what was going on. This got snowball quite excited and forced him to rush through the first course of the morning’s meal.

Turtle Nest Inventory

Earlier this week there was an inventory done on the beach of a loggerhead sea turtle nest. The inventory usually happens three days after a nest has hatched which likely took place at some point in the middle of the night. This nest was on state park beach, so park staff are involved in excavating the nest. In the first two photos you’ll notice a metal cage covering the nest. This is to prevent foxes from getting at the eggs.

They count all the cracked and broken shells to determine how many turtle babies successfully hatched. Over 100 were counted with an approx. 96% hatch rate which is a good sign.

Occasionally, one or more live turtle babies that had not yet scratched their way to the surface are discovered at the bottom of the nest and if so, they begin their journey across the sand toward the ocean.

No babies were found during this inventory and although they are exciting to see, it’s actually good news that so many made their own way out of the nest and into the sea where they will spend their lives.

It’s possible that 35 years from now, one of the females from the nest will return to this exact spot to lay her own eggs and continue the cycle.

Getting It How He Likes It

On a recent morning this white ibis caught a small crab (which they love) in the salt marsh during low tide.

After catching a crab, an ibis will typically snap off the claws first and usually eat them right away. Then the legs come off one by one until all that is left of poor crabby is a disk like hockey puck shaped structure. The remaining portion can then be wolfed down whole or broken up into small easier to manage bites.

Here the ibis skips that last part and goes right for the pièce de résistance.

Some Active…Some Not

On a recent morning over at the marsh… A great blue heron came swooping in so fast and close, I couldn’t fit all of him in my camera lens.

The little tricolored heron on the other hand. seemed perfectly happy to sit still and admire his own reflection.

What? No Grits?!?

As a full fledged South Carolina citizen, this egret should surely know that a traditional southern meal is shrimp and grits.

Looks like our good ole boy has passed on the grits this time though and went with the shrimp only.

In all honesty, can’t say as I blame him. 🙂

Rough Breakfast

This morning a young anhinga came up out of the marsh with a decent size fish.

But by the time we saw it, the bird must have really beat up on this poor fish, as it was looking more than a little bit rough around the edges.

The anhinga did however manage to get the fish down that long skinny neck.

As is often the case in this area of the marsh, there are many types of vegetation which can get in the way of photos. But I kind of didn’t mind these because I thought they made sort of interesting and colorful geometric shapes.

“Radar” Is Back!

Well the big news over at the marsh this morning was the surprise re-appearance of our pal “Radar” who has been MIA since early Feb. 2015, almost a year and a half ago.

For those that don’t know the story… “Radar” is a great egret that was fitted with a solar powered transmitter and two antennas as part of a tracking program. When he became missing we couldn’t locate any of his original taggers and are not even sure now if anyone is still keeping any track of the boy.

We have been following him for over five years as the earliest photos of him I can find on my files are from Feb. 2011.

So where has he been for all this time?!? We heard reports that he was spotted at one point early this Spring in a nearby rookery so if that’s the case then he found himself a girlfriend.

But that never previously stopped him from returning to the marsh where he was always Head Egret In Charge. “Radar” even stood up to the alligators and even they seemed to recognize and respect his authority.

So we hope he sticks around for a while, but he is going to have some work to do getting all the other birds in line now that the sheriff is back in town! 🙂