Phil Lanoue Photography
I previously worked as a news and sports photographer. Recently I have been enjoying wildlife photography. My approach toward bird photos is similar to sports photography. I attempt to capture mostly action and hopefully a unique perspective.
Here He Comes!
Here’s one from the summer…
An alligator was taking a slow cruise down along the salt marsh at low tide this past August. He said hello to his egret friend as he passed, stopped to scoop a little snack out of the mud, then continued on his way. Nice lazy summer evening in the marsh.
Was It Something I Said?!
This past weekend I noticed a brown pelican that was calmly floating along in the salt marsh enjoying a pleasant afternoon. As I approached, it seemed to be giving me kind of a wary look and then proceeded to vacate the premises. I don’t believe I made any comments which could be construed as being rude, and normally the pelicans don’t care much about what’s going on around them. Sometimes I think a marching band could come through and they would just simply continue on fishing.
It can’t be that there was something about my appearance that it didn’t care for. The alligators seem to like me OK enough, you would think the pelicans would be happy to see me as well.
He was probably leaving anyway to go look for his friends. Yes, that must be it…
Big Dinner
One day last week we were leaving the salt marsh area just prior to sunset when we stopped to watch this great egret that had caught a very large fish.
We figured that the egret would likely decide this fish was too large to get down and that it would drop the fish and walk away. We have seen egrets and blue herons struggle with large fish for a considerable amount of time and are often forced to leave a fish it knows it can’t swallow. But this egret must have been particularly hungry because I barely blinked and it swallowed it’s dinner down with no problem in record time!
Fishing In The Marsh…Final Chapter
After a brief interlude featuring a hungry egret, here is the final chapter of the bald eagle from last week’s fishing expedition in the marsh.
About 45 minutes after the activities of the previous two posts took place, and just as we were about to conclude that the eagle had flown off for the day, we look across the marsh to see it flying above the tree tops apparently with plans to continue fishing. By now though, dark clouds had moved in making lighting conditions much worse then in the previous photos, and I was trying to keep up by changing camera settings on the fly so to speak.
Well…the eagle makes a quick loop around, then heads down into the marsh where, if you look carefully, you can see a great blue heron in among the reeds. The heron must have caught a fish and the eagle spotted that and decided he wanted the heron’s fish. As is typical of such encounters, the eagle gets his way and emerges from the reeds with the purloined fish.
So now the eagle does another loop around the marsh, then turns and heads triumphantly in my direction giving me a last look at it’s current acquisition before finally clocking out for the day!
Afternoon Snack
This past weekend I was watching this great egret snagging fish out of the salt marsh during low tide. Unlike the great blue herons, who mostly only go after the one big score, egrets will snack all day long on small fish and other tiny marine crustaceans such as glass shrimp.
Should the opportunity present itself however, and a larger fish happens to catch the attention of the egret, it will most certainly give it a go and try to make that the big meal for the day. Later this week I will post photos of just such an event where an egret has a fish the size of your arm!
Fishing In The Marsh…Part Two
Here is the continuation of the bald eagle’s afternoon adventure in the salt marsh.
As you saw in part one, the eagle left it’s perch after spotting a fish down in the marsh, and flew back toward the tree with it’s catch. We now pick up with what happened next. The eagle took it’s rather modest meal to a branch in the pine tree where it proceeded to dine on the tasty snack. The head of the fish seemed to be particularly appealing as you can see in pic 3 the head has been removed, and in pic 4 it’s down the hatch. Of course the well mannered eagle then needs to clean various scraps of fish parts of it’s beak and it does this by rubbing it across the handy tree branch. With the clean up complete, the eagle now gives me a somewhat disturbing look, as if it did not appreciate my staring at it while it was eating. I suppose if you think about it, I was a bit rude, and was this why our friend decided to leave the tree?! Well possibly, but it did not fly away and leave the area completely, it did another swoop over the marsh and well…what happened after that is a post for another day…
Fishing In The Marsh…Part One
This is the same eagle from yesterday’s post.
Thursday afternoon we noticed this bald eagle sitting in a pine tree along side the salt marsh. The eagle was quite alert and appeared to be actively surveying the area in the direction of the marsh. The bald eagle’s legendary eyesight was on full display as it suddenly burst out of the tree and rapidly headed straight toward a spot in the water where it plucked out a fish. It obviously saw the fish even from a significant distance away and immediately went out to get it. The eagle then headed right back to the pine with it’s fresh catch safely secured in it’s talons.
What happened next after landing in the tree with the fish will be tomorrow’s post. So…stay tuned!
A Very Busy Eagle
This bald eagle was all over the salt marsh yesterday afternoon. It was using a nearby pine tree as a base of operations from where it would swoop down and grab a fish and then bring the fish back to the tree to eat. We saw it do that several times.
I have quite a few photos of this whole event and will post more tomorrow but for now I just wanted to give you an idea of how close it flew over our heads at one point on it’s way back to home base with a fish.
Phil Lanoue Photography 