Phil Lanoue Photography

Sunday Spoonbills

Well all four spoonbills are still in the marsh area which is good news. The big pink guys are doing their thing and creating excitement as always.

Today we had three of the four hanging around in the general vicinity.

One did a couple of circles and fly by’s over the marsh, the oldest one of the group seemed happy to spend the day with the wood storks, and the third spoonie was mostly just feeding in the salt marsh popping down some tasty glass shrimp.

Gotta love a pink Sunday!

Squeaky

This afternoon we had a loud squeaky visitor at the salt marsh. A belted kingfisher flew in, landed on a stump for about two seconds then took off again.

These tiny, fast birds continue to mock me and drive me crazy with their sarcastically squeaky voices which can be heard from a considerable distance.

Also last night my computer monitor cashed in it’s chips and I’m currently working (well trying to) on a back up monitor which as best as I can tell is from 1986. I can’t tell how anything looks on this thing.

Saw a lot of bird action this afternoon too. The spoonies were out, GBH’s were flying all over as were wood storks, but I’m not really sure how any of it looks.

I’m flying blind out here right now.

So That’s Where He Was Going!

On a recent late afternoon I was checking out the salt marsh but did not expect much activity due to the high tide.

Out of the corner of my eye I barely managed to catch a glimpse of this blue heron before he got by me. He was zipping along rather quickly and I wondered what the emergency destination could possibly be.

Well it turned out he needed to immediately be playing king of the hill on top of this dead tree at the east side of the marsh. I’m sure this afforded the master of his domain an excellent view.

Well That’s A Mouth Full

Mr. A pops up out of the water with his big yap stuffed with yummy fishy treats on a recent evening over in the salt marsh.

He seemed very happy with his choice of the seafood appetizer to start off the night’s dining experience.

This Guy Could Play Shortstop In The Big Leagues

This past week I was watching a tricolored heron fishing in the salt marsh during low tide. At one point he snagged a fast swimming minnow (which is a typical menu item for Tri’s) whirled around to complete the play but momentarily bobbled the ball, uh I mean fish.

You can see the look of shock but also determination on his face in the third photo when it appeared he might get charged with an error.

But no! The plucky veteran recovers in time to make it a quick out for the hapless runner, uh I mean minnow. 🙂

Nothing Interferes With Nap Time…

So this morning had our pal Mr. A enjoying a pleasant snooze in the sun on his own little private island out in the marsh pond.

There was a snowy egret tucked back into the reeds out there with him, but Mr. A paid no attention. Suddenly a great egret comes swooping in unexpectedly! This gets the snowy all riled up, plus the egret comes in with a bit of an attitude which could mean some additional drama.

But interestingly, although snowys often fight with other snowys, and egrets constantly chase around other egrets, the two different species generally get along just fine so once they both calmed down and realized it was no big deal, all was peaceful once again.

Now you would think this would cause our good buddy to wake up all grumpy and make some sort of a fuss. But no sir, not on this sunny morning, Mr. A never even cracked open an eye. You find a nice comfy spot to nap away the day in the sun and nothing is going to interfere with that. 🙂

Leaving Again

Well the good news is that a few of the spoonbills are still being seen around the marsh area. The bad news is that every time I have seen them in the past several days, they were leaving and going back out into the marsh, way too far off for pictures.

These spoonie shots here were from this afternoon and they were as usual heading away from me. Don’t these dopey birds realize they are not at all being photographer friendly?!? They have a responsibility to come in close, be active and most importantly, look super cute. Instead I get a view of tail feathers as they unceremoniously depart the scene. Very rude. You don’t catch the alligators doing that, they love to stick around in hopes of getting extra screen time.

I’m seriously going to need to speak to these spatula beaks and explain how things are done around here.

I Think He’s Just Sleeping

Oops. Well guess he was awake after all. Alligator earlier this week appeared to be snoozing and not really paying attention when he suddenly lunged up and over and grabbed some poor hapless creature. Likely a fish…or a bunch of fish…but whatever it was he gulped it down quickly without ever lifting his head out of the water.

Even I sometimes forget how fast these guys can be when they need to immediately react.