Phil Lanoue Photography

Saturday Afternoon

It was kind of a slow day over at the marsh yesterday afternoon, not a whole lot of our usual residents were around, but there were a few…

A snowy egret was seen jumping off from the oyster beds in the salt marsh. A least tern was flying off with a fresh caught fish. A great egret got all involved chasing across the water after some other bird that was fishing in ‘his’ territory. And of course You Know Who, fell asleep right there in the water without a care in the world.

Notice how everyone else seems to be rather busy going about their day, while a certain other individual decides it’s the perfect time for a nap?!

Was It Something I Said?

This tricolored heron took one look at me today and immediately jumped up out of the salt marsh and took off in a hurry. Rather rude I thought.

Conversely, my good buddy Mr. A seemed absolutely delighted to see me this afternoon! Or maybe he was just happy the sun was out.

Well either way he was much better mannered than the nervously skittish tri.

He’s At It Again

Once again an anhinga is caught playing with his food out in the marsh this afternoon.

Naturally, for an anhinga, flipping a fish off your sharp bill and flinging it into the air to catch it on the way down is how they feed. But they are not required to make it look like so much fun. Well… not much fun for the fish of course…

Black Skimmer At Work

This afternoon we had a young black skimmer hit the salt marsh for a few quick passes.

He grabbed a few fish, buzzed a confused yellowlegs, and in general had a nice cruise through the area before heading off deeper out into the marsh.

Big Breakfast… Almost

This morning I was watching this egret fishing at the edge of an oyster bed in the salt marsh during low tide.

As soon as I saw him flapping his wings and dancing around looking all excited, I knew he saw something he wanted which generally turns out to be a nice fish.

The egret did indeed pluck a good size fish up out of the water which would have been an excellent breakfast. He seemed extremely happy with his catch, and even did a funny little hop move over to open water, apparently to finish his meal.

He started to swallow the fish down and I fully expected him to do just that. But what the egret did next quite frankly shocked me more than a little. He bent down and gently placed the fish back in the water and, as best as I could tell, the fish swam away to freedom.

This egret may have decided that the fish was too big to get down, although he seemed to be a full sized adult bird and should have been capable of eating a fish that size.

I was so surprised I stopped taking pictures and just stood there and watched expecting the egret to go back after the fish. But all he did was pace around for a bit then fly off.

I suppose the fish was too much to handle so no big breakfast for this egret today.

Late Afternoon

Earlier this weekend I grabbed this quick shot of a great blue heron as it flew across the marsh with upper back and side lighting hitting him.

I would have liked some light on the bird’s face, but I did like the way the late day sun brightened up the water.

The Intimidator

Earlier this afternoon I noticed this good size alligator heading in from the middle of the marsh pond on a full steam. There is a small area in the near corner of the pond that we call ‘baby cove’ because several of the little alligators (those 4 feet and under) live there. One main reason why the babies stay in that kind of out of the way location is to, hopefully, remain off the radar screen of the big guys.

So when I glanced over at the baby cove section, I saw one of the little gators and knew he was the likely target of the heavy battleship moving in. It certainly didn’t take any lengthy discussion to get this smaller alligator to quickly leave the vicinity. But that apparently was not enough for the head gator in charge, because he suddenly lifted the front part of his body up out of the water and opened his mouth as wide as it would go in a display of dominance.

In the fifth picture you can see what brought this on because in the background is a second baby that needed a lesson in who the boss is around these parts.

The big guy then turned around and after a brief stand off, complete with a menacing glare, young alligator #2 also was easily persuaded to leave the area.

After completing that task, the big boy headed back out toward the middle of the marsh presumably to continue spreading more cheer.