Phil Lanoue Photography

Keeping A Watchful Eye

This morning I found one of our local bald eagles sitting in a pine tree along the edge of the salt marsh. I don’t know if it’s the same duck hunter from yesterday, but it could be.

Now that they have one or two chicks, food for the babies is not the only concern for the eagle parents. Watching out for predators or other birds which they may determine are invaders to their territory is also a full time job.

After keeping a close eye on this one section of the marsh area, the eagle left the tree and doing an airborne reconnaissance, it flew across to the other side where it sat in another tree and kept watch there for a bit. It soon left that tree as well and patrolled further along the far edge which is a tactic that will hopefully allow for views from every possible direction. Good safety procedures are certainly being followed by the new parents.

Baby Food

It seems that our local pair of mated bald eagles have one if not two chicks now in their nest at the far edge of the salt marsh.

One sign of new mouths to feed is the increased hunting action we have seen taking place around the area.

This afternoon I saw one of the eagles swoop down and hit the water and it sat there for a few seconds and I knew it was trying to get something secured in it’s talons. The eagle suddenly burst up out of the water with a fresh caught duck, and I suspect our unfortunate victim was a ruddy duck.

The eagle flew off toward the nest with baby’s evening meal and I couldn’t believe it when the eagle looked right back at the duck and stared into it’s eyes as the poor little guy was being carried away.

Radar And Friend

One day last week our good buddy Radar was out fishing in the salt marsh with his new little snowy egret friend.

After snowball left the area, Radar continued on patrolling the water around the oyster beds making sure everything was properly in order.

Gotta Go

Last week this adult brown pelican made a quick departure from the salt marsh after a heavy round of fishing.

Wood Stork Evening Flight

Wood stork wings tips generally appear black. But if the sunlight hits them just right, such as in this early evening flight across the salt marsh, their wing tip feathers can almost glow with a green iridescence.

Dragon In His Lair

Well actually it’s more like the cute alligator laying around on his bed of nice soft tamped down weeds.

I took a walk over to the swamp this afternoon but things looked fairly quiet. The usual active assortment of coots, moorhens, and grebes were hard at work but otherwise not much going on.

I took this overall view of one section of the swamp with my phone because I didn’t have a wide lens with me. Then, down just a bit further, something caught my eye and I stopped to peer through the reeds. Although he thought he was well hidden, I was able to spot our alligator friend relaxing in the mid day sun. He lifted his head up and took a look at me but was not tremendously impressed so he went back to napping.

Pleasant enough day for everyone it seemed, with not a care in the world.

King Of The Mountain

Well in this case, for a young white ibis, it’s more like king of the oyster beds. At least until the adults start showing up, then it’s time to leave and go hang out with the rest of the kids.

New Fishing Style

Yesterday, at late afternoon, we had a few adult brown pelicans come into the salt marsh and begin fishing. Except they were not using the typical brown pelican fishing style which generally involves flying around and then doing an almost vertical head first dive into the water.

There were a lot of small fish in this one area so that’s where the pelicans landed and stayed. So rather than fly and fish, they floated and paddled along the water in circles, occasionally dunking down their head to scoop up tiny fish and shrimp.

After plunging it’s huge bill into the water, the pelican would keep it’s head down while straining the water out of the bill so that only the catch would remain.

I never saw any of these guys snatch anything large, they mostly just came up with small marine creatures that sometimes I could barely see. But they definitely caught things they liked because I could see them swallowing the snack after practically every plunge.

As it began to get dark I had to leave these hard working pelicans, but it was quite an entertaining show for the time I spent watching these large birds feed.