One Tough Day…

Just wanted to make a quick post to all my BBs (Blog Buddies) out there to let you know I will be unable to respond to your very kind comments on my blog, and also not be able to view and comment on your many excellent blogs for a short while.

Yesterday my wife and I took my elderly mom out to an early dinner and then to Garden City Beach to look at the ocean which is something she really enjoys a lot. Below is a picture of the beach taken this summer…

Soon after arriving my mom fell and banged her head against a wood fence railing and also fractured her shoulder in the fall. So we spent the better part of yesterday in the hospital ER. We were with my mom most of today already and will likely be spending time with her over the next several days.

Hope to be back annoying everyone with excessive photos of alligators soon!

Aerial Combat

Yesterday morning we saw an osprey flying across the marsh carrying a small fish it had just plucked out of the water.

Suddenly a bald eagle came swooping out of nowhere with a plan to take the fish from the osprey. A mid air battle ensued with the osprey taking evasive maneuvers, and the eagle matching him on every turn. Eagles are often quite successful at snatching a fish from another bird, but this osprey was determined to keep his tiny prize, and finally managed to shake off the eagle and fly away with his fish and pride intact.

In the first two photos where the osprey appears headless, it’s because he’s actually looking beneath and behind himself at the eagle, so what we see is the top of it’s head. In the last photo you can see the eagle reaching out with it’s talons in an attempt to grab the fish from the osprey. But…in the end the osprey was victorious and the eagle would have to go catch his own fish!

The Coot Parade

Since it was a bright sunny day yesterday, we decided to go back out to the swamp and see if any of our alligator pals might be out sunbathing. We saw this one guy who was apparently so relaxed that he seemed completely oblivious to the parade of American Coots that marched by noisily behind him!

Swamp Babies

Yesterday afternoon, despite it being a kind of dark and dreary day, we went over to the swamp to see if anybody might be hanging around. We quickly spotted this baby alligator lounging on a mud bog near the edge of the swamp. The camera angle may be deceiving and make it look bigger, but this little guy was barely two feet long. If you notice the pretty yellow flowers near his head you can get some idea of how small he is. A bit further out in the swamp we saw another young gator come slowly gliding by. This one was a four footer and one we still consider being in the “baby” catagory!

Fun Little Tricolored Herons

I was looking back through my files at some photos of one of my favorite little birds, the tricolored heron, and I realized that I hadn’t posted any pictures of them lately.

These little guys are fun and interesting to watch as they carefully and patiently stalk minnows in the marsh. So…here are two different birds, on two different days, in two different settings.

As Fresh As It Gets

Earlier this week we saw a great blue heron grab a nice big fish out of the salt marsh. He was clearly excited with his prize but also knew that a fish this large was going to present a bit of a problem since it couldn’t be quickly gulped down…some major effort would be required. But he was willing and up to the task! He worked on getting that fish properly into place for 12 minutes before finally being able to enjoy his well deserved meal.

“Gotcha!!”

Here’s an anhinga fishing shot from the files…

The anhinga is a water bird that fishes by swimming underwater and spearing a fish on the end of it’s sharp bill. Here, the excited bird bursts up out of the marsh pond with a freshly speared meal. Anhingas are one of my favorite birds to watch and photographing them is a challenge which I greatly enjoy.

Liftoff!

This past weekend we were watching numerous Double-crested Cormorants fishing in the marsh pond. Once one decides it’s time to leave the area, cormorants have an interesting method of taking off from the water. They use their feet in a kind of hop and skip technique to get momentum going which propels them across the water until they finally get airborne!

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