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!

“I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing!”

I mentioned earlier in the week that I had some file photos of a great blue heron that caught a HUGE eel. Some regular viewers here indicated that they wanted to see those pics so I figured today was a good day to post them. These were taken back in October 2010.

The heron had grabbed an eel the size of a baseball bat out of the salt marsh during low tide. I watched it battle with the eel for close to an hour never knowing if it would really try to swallow this huge eel or end up leaving it. Many times I thought the bird had given up, it appeared to be exhausted, but he clearly wanted that eel very badly. The problem with swallowing something this large was the sheer weight of the eel. Since the birds don’t have any teeth, each time he tried to bring the eel up to get it position to swallow, the eel’s weight would cause it to slip and drop right back down into the mud.

What was amusing was the other bird spectators that would show up at various times to witness the event in apparent amazement. Assorted ibis, egrets and an extremely curious wood stork all stopped by to watch. Eventually the blue heron took the eel back into the marsh grass for privacy where I could barely see it, but to my astonishment he finally managed to swallow the eel down!

“Hey Watch This!”

Last week we were watching some brown pelicans fishing in the marsh pond. This one guy seemed to be showing off his flight technique to his friend who was watching attentively in the background. The flight instruction must have been successful because soon they were both flying, diving, and splashing around for fish. 

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