Phil Lanoue Photography

Optical Illusion?

Here is a photo I took this afternoon of an egret fishing.

Look closely at the fish’s face. At a quick first glance, do you see what appears to be a fish face kind of looking down with one red eye and one black eye and the bright highlighted spots being it’s mouth?

Or… do you see a face looking up with that red spot being the fish’s mouth and that black eye is it’s left eye with a tiny portion of it’s right eye appearing at the top?

Do you see both scenes? Do you need to refocus your eyes to see both? Which did you see first?

The second scenario is the correct one, what initially may have appeared to be a red right eye is actually the fish’s open mouth. Who saw that right off from the start? 🙂

I Have Arrived

Everyone knows how great blue herons have a way of making a huge production out of just about anything they do. no matter how routine it may be.

They often feel compelled to loudly announce their comings and goings, and sometimes have to let the whole world know even when they are just standing around.

On an earlier occasion, when this GBH flew in from the back edge of the marsh and proceeded to land right in front of us, it sure looked like he wanted it to be a dramatic entrance. And of course, as usual, it was.

Quick Treat

Earlier this week I was watching a tricolored heron fishing in the salt marsh among the oyster beds.

He popped back a few of these nice tasty little treats. Such a smart, energetic little heron!

Only Room for One

As soon as I arrived at the salt marsh this morning the first thing I saw was an apparent stand off between these two young alligators.

They faced each other down for a brief instant, but things escalated quickly when the one on the left lunged out and chased off his competitor. Once that task was accomplished, the victorious warrior was able to lay there with a smug look on his proud face.

The vanquished intruder floated off meekly not to be seen again for the rest of the morning, but there really is plenty of room for everybody.

Our brave gladiator did pick up a little friend later on however. A small plover took a liking to him and followed along the edge of the marsh for a while as the alligator scooped up some hard earned breakfast.

He Did It Again!

Yesterday I was watching this blue heron fishing at the edge of the marsh, when once again our pro fishing expert came up with two fish on one attempt!

I guess there is nowhere else to go from here but hope for a threefer. If anybody can do it, this heron will.

Party After The Storm

After the rainy, windy tropical system that beat on us this past weekend moved through late last night, we woke up to a nice bright sunny morning.

So I went over to the marsh to see how everyone was doing. To my surprise, a bunch of the kids (young alligators) had apparently decided it was party time over in the salt marsh. This was surprising for two reasons. One, was that they don’t normally go over to the salt side that often, and two, it’s rare to see a group of half a dozen alligators all carousing about in a similar area.

But they also seemed more than a little confused. The wind and extremely high tide had brought in tons of dried reeds that all accumulated along the edges of the marsh.

They didn’t appear to know quite what to make of all that, but managed to muddle through somehow. But in any case this one, like most parties, eventually had to come to an end.

So one by one, the by now exhausted ravers, started dragging their tired selves up out of the water and through another mess of dried reeds, and took the slow lazy stroll across the walkway back to their regular home pond area.

They will likely need a ~~two day~~ nice nap to recover from the festivities.

Windy Today

We still have that tropical system lurking off our coast and the wind gusts have really picked up.

I took advantage of a break in the rain when the sun came out and headed out to the marsh. There were several egrets out attempting to fly as best they could but were getting blown all over the place.

Tropical storm or not, they still need to eat and this skillful bird came up with two fish on one attempt!

After a short time the wind had blown me off the marsh too, so I left them alone to fend for themselves.

Stormy Day At The Marsh

Well we have a tropical system lurking off the South Carolina coast right now that promises to bring rain, wind, and rough surf to the area for the weekend and into early next week. The sky doesn’t really look especially threatening and we actually expect periods of clearing followed by more bouts of rain as the system moves through.

I grabbed a break in between showers this afternoon to head over to the marsh to see how everybody was making out.

Here is a view looking north across the salt marsh with a higher then normal tide almost entirely covering the tall reeds out there.

I saw a few alligators out and they looked totally depressed. It’s May so it’s supposed to be warm and sunny, just how they like it, not grey, windy and rainy. I felt particularly bad for this one young little guy who looked completely miserable in among some of the pond muck and weeds.

There were a couple of brave flyers out battling the stiff gusts including this great blue heron and egret, but most optional flying will likely be curtailed for the weekend anyway.