Phil Lanoue Photography

It’s A Twofer!

Saw this great blue heron come up with a two for one deal yesterday afternoon in the marsh pond.

He got two fish with one strike at the water!

As it was, I was amazed by how many of these fish the heron caught in a short period of time. But even so, I guess he was in a rush and simply catching one fish per strike wasn’t doing it for him. Smart bird in any case because this two fish method is much more energy efficient.

Little Greenie

Earlier this week I watching this green heron fishing in among the oyster beds at the salt marsh during low tide.

It’s fun watching these active and colorful little guys dart back and forth in search of their usual diet of small fish and shrimp.

Despite being very fast walkers and flyers, these stocky birds will often wait patiently and remain very still until the perfect moment to strike at the water occurs. They are very skilled at what they do.

Crab Fishing

I was watching this young alligator sloshing around in the salt marsh yesterday afternoon and he seemed to be mostly scooping up mouthfuls of small fish and glass shrimp. Suddenly the gator lifted his head up out of the water and I saw it had a fresh caught blue crab.

He crunched on the crab for a few seconds then lifted his head and neck up out of the water and swallowed his treat right down.

In the last photo I thought he had kind of a happy, satisfied look on his face. It was quite likely his first crab of the season and he seemed to really enjoy it!

Busy Day

We had a lot going on over in the marsh area this afternoon.
The little green heron was out fishing, a black skimmer came zipping by, an alligator caught himself a crab, and the eagles were out flying all over the place.

At one point this eagle, which we believe to be the female of our local mated pair, stopped for a quiet sit in a nearby pine tree.
From looking at her you would not know she just got finished chasing off an intruder eagle, plus mom and dad are still teaching the youngsters how to fly and eventually fish on their own.
Like I said, we had a lot going on and of all the photos from today I thought I would go with mom looking fairly relaxed but still alert.

Pretty Birdie?! I Think Not!

So yesterday afternoon I’m over by the marsh pond when I see this egret in all his fine breeding plumage preening away on a small island.

I think how nice he looks, so I go to grab some photos. Well after a few seconds the egret turns and offers me up this butt shot. How rude! Just when I was having all these pleasant thoughts about how nice the bird looks, this is how I’m treated.

Then he turns to the side and has an expression as if to say…”How about them apples pal?!”

Humm… By the way, this is an area where alligators are often swimming around and the gators like to crawl up on that island. I guess the egret was feeling all full of himself with no nasty alligators to contend with.

I’ve also included here a wide shot taken with my phone showing a more overall view of this section of the marsh, especially after several viewers liked seeing the wider shot of the salt marsh last week. This shot is looking west and directly to my right if I turned north, would be the salt marsh. The two areas are separated by a causeway which has vehicle traffic. The marsh pond seen here is fresh (well brackish) water and most of the alligators like to hang around here. They will only visit the salt marsh section for short periods to feed then they walk back over to the pond. In winter most of the alligators live in the swamp area which is directly south of this view but still in walking distance. The ocean is also very close by to the east.

It turns out to be nice convenient one stop shopping for wildlife photo ops. 🙂

An Osprey Goes Into A Dive…

You’ve heard the old joke…An osprey goes into a dive, what should he watch out for?

Watered down drinks? Filthy restrooms? Rude Patrons? Hitting his beak on the oyster bed?

In this case, the osprey went into a steep dive after spotting a potential meal down in the salt marsh but pulled up just in time. This was possibly upon realizing it was low tide and the risk of smacking one’s face into an oyster sticking up out of the shallow water was too great.

But I was impressed by the angle and aerodynamic style of this skilled flyer.

Also, once again the overcast grey sky made the background go white. We are due for some sunshine soon. (I’m hoping)

Big Effort Small Reward

This morning I was watching a great blue heron fishing in the marsh. The first time I saw him strike the water he made a big splash but came up empty.

A few minutes later he did catch a small fish that he seemed happy with, but not likely the whopper he was hoping for.

I saw him catch three or four small fish like that before he flew off. A lot of work for a small breakfast.

One Quick Circle

A bald eagle came flying in from their nest area this afternoon, made one fast soaring circle overhead, then blasted back across the salt marsh. We still have rainy weather here and the grey overcast sky made the background almost white.

Quick in…quick out.