Phil Lanoue Photography

Togetherness

We still have a small group of American White Pelicans hanging around in the marsh area. They mostly tend to stick around in a group.

They fish together, they rest together, they float around together and at some point they will invariably, take off and fly to a new spot together.

That’s what was happening here, they were floating around in a line when suddenly it was time to fly off to a new, presumably better location.

At a quick first glance you might expect the title comments to be coming from the overly excited looking blue heron. But if you look closely in the lower left corner you will see the original owner of the fish was in fact a cormorant.

The cormorant is the bird that first caught the fish but the GBH is in current possession so I guess that makes it his…at least he sure thinks it’s his. 🙂

Closing In From Behind

On a recent afternoon out at the salt marsh, I saw a great blue heron flying just above the reeds and taking some serious evasive maneuvers.

The guy closing in from behind looked rather sinister to me and I believe I’m not the only one that decided he might be up to no good.

Since I was not the target of the hunt I didn’t actually have to leave, but our nervous GBH friend clearly figured it would be a great idea to quickly depart the premises.

Finding Shelter

It was cold out at the salt marsh this afternoon with a brisk wind that cut through you like a knife.

There was limited wildlife activity out there as most birds seemed to decide that optional flying was completely unnecessary and not a great idea.

So I was a little surprised when this tricolored heron suddenly dropped in, seemingly out of nowhere. The heron clearly was looking for a shelter from the wind and found it among the tall reeds out in the marsh. I was also impressed considerably by the approach and landing.

Gulp

A great egret from earlier this week has a bemused expression on his face since apparently the fish he just swallowed went down sideways and appears to be a bit stuck.

He eventually got it down fine but things were rather interesting for a few minutes.

Heading Back Home

We’ve had a group of white pelicans hanging around in the marsh pond lately. Mostly they paddle around back and forth following the cormorants who always seem to know exactly where the fish are located.

But as the day draws to a close, the pelicans will slowly head over to the ‘far off gator island’ which they are free to use since most of the alligators are done for the season.

Here they make there way across the pond as the late day back sun lighting adds some sparkle to the water.

Surprise Pop Up

Late today, just as we were leaving the salt marsh area, I caught some quick movement out of the corner of my eye. My first was…”what’s a squirrel doing down there?!?” But of course it wasn’t a squirrel, it was our pal the cute little mink scampering along among the dried reeds and oyster beds at the edge of the marsh.

At one point he hopped into the water, swam around for a bit (no doubt looking for a fish) then popped himself right back out again, easily dripping water off his coat.

In any case it was good to see our little buddy again. We just hope he knows enough to stay out of the nearby roadway.