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.
Ibis Fishing
Last week I was watching these two white ibis fishing in the salt marsh during low tide.
One of them caught a nice size fish and even had a bit of a struggle to get it under control and swallowed down.
But what I found most interesting about this situation was…his friend completely ignored the entire event.
Normally when two or more birds are feeding near each other and somebody comes up with a nice catch it creates a giant fuss and everyone has to get involved!
But not this time, the other ibis just calmly continued on about it’s business while his friend enjoyed a hearty meal.
Another Swampy Morning
Yesterday morning, after the early fog began to lift, I headed over to the swamp to check on potential activity.
I quickly saw a group of three alligators sitting out waiting and hoping that some warm sunshine would come their way. It did, and they seemed fairly content.
The usual coots and moorhens were in attendance going about their business often under the watchful but disinterested gaze of a gator.
Just as I was about to leave I saw something crunching through the dried reeds. It turned out to be this young alligator who wandered out, propped itself up, and sat there looking at me like a frog on a lily pad.
Morning Flight In Blue
On Thursday morning I saw this great blue heron flying across the marsh pond looking quite purposeful. The blue heron is one of my all time favorite birds and I particularly liked the way this one looked with the blue water background.
Look Of Determination
One thing I can say about this osprey photo from yesterday morning…I would not want to be a fish and have that bird looking down at me like that with it’s skyhooks at the ready to pluck me out of the water!
Flight Pair
This morning I photographed a pair of white ibis flying just above the marsh pond. The bottom ibis is displaying the all white plumage of an adult. You can see how the ibis flying above still has some patches of brown indicating it is transforming from an adolescent into an adult.
They seemed to be in a hurry and were likely heading over to join their friends who were feeding in the salt marsh nearby.
Just A Quick Shout Out
I wanted to jump in today and make a real quick post to say Hi and then I’m outa here!
My main computer crashed Monday night so for today I’m working off a 12 year old laptop just to get these two pics posted of a bald eagle from this past weekend. The screen on that machine is so bad I have no idea how those photos look.
I should be back in business tomorrow so here’s just a quick hit and run (or fly)!
Morning In The Swamp
I know what you all have been thinking…you know them, you love them, you can’t live without them…so where are the alligators?!
Well this turned out to be a warm sunny morning so I figured I would head out to the swamp to see if anybody might be out sunbathing. And yes indeed there was!
Several gators were out enjoying a pleasant nap in the sun, while various coots and moorhens went about their morning, floating around picking at swamp weeds, squawking and fussing at each other as is their typical behavior. One particularly curious coot even followed an alligator as it glided slowly along in the swamp. Possibly it was a young bird and had never seen an alligator before. The alligator, however, didn’t pay any attention to the coot and continued on his way to pick out a nice spot in the sun!
“Hoodies”!
My all time favorite duck is the hooded merganser so I really look forward to this time of year when they begin to arrive in our area.
We saw six “hoodies” yesterday in a marsh pond, three males and three females.
What I find to be both interesting and amusing about these cute little ducks is their head crest which can be raised or lowered. In the first photo you can see this male has his lowered at the moment, but it will be seen raised in all the rest of the photos because that’s how I prefer to photograph them.
To me the comical mergansers are almost like a cartoon bird. Something that was imagined and drawn up for an animated movie.
I love the face of the male with that bright orange eye in his black face and the extremely bright white head crest
The female, with her brown head crest raised has a Bride of Frankenstein look to her I always thought.
The mergansers are very entertaining to watch as they float around the pond occasionally chasing one another around, and when they rise up out of the water and puff out their chests, it truly is an amazing sight!
I’m hoping to have more opportunities to watch and photograph these diving ducks and if some stay around you will all be seeing more of them for sure.
Phil Lanoue Photography 