Phil Lanoue Photography

Morning Mink

Here’s one of our little mink friends from a while back bopping around the edge of the salt marsh among the dried reeds.

His face is still a bit wet from poking around in the water hunting for a fish, but the fur will dry quickly. They often go in and out of the water several times searching for a tasty meal.

It was a dark, grey day out at the salt marsh this afternoon. But that didn’t stop Radar from being out looking for an afternoon meal, and this time he had a friend with him. A white ibis had joined in the hunt and amazingly, Radar seemed happy to have the company.

At one point the ibis caught a fish and quickly scurried off to munch it down before Radar could snatch it away. But both the ibis and myself were quite shocked when Radar paid absolutely no attention to the catch, he just continued on with his own fishing.

Despite the gloomy weather, Radar appeared to be in a very pleasant and sharing mood today.

Almost Got Away…

This afternoon I was watching a white ibis feeding in and around the oyster beds in the salt marsh. At one point the ibis plucked out a small mud crab but the little crab didn’t want to go quietly. The crab managed to fight it’s way out of the ibis’ long curved bill and the bird dropped it.

But…the hungry ibis was not about to let his tasty treat get away that easy. He immediately re-caught the crab and swallowed down the crunchy snack!

Sure, It Looks Like Fun…

I was watching this young brown pelican fishing in the salt marsh on a recent afternoon. The bird seemed to be having a good time splashing around, and flying back and forth low over the water.

But especially for the juveniles, fishing is serious business. It’s in those first couple of early years where experience means survival. We have seen a few young brown pelicans dead around the area. Sometimes it’s a sudden drop in temperature during the night combined with not catching enough food that can create a fatal crises for these birds.

Of course most will survive which is apparent from the large numbers of them we can see almost year round flying just out over the ocean as well as a bit inland.

Still Here…

This past weekend we went over to the salt marsh to see what might be going on, and also to check in on our recently returned buddy Radar.

At first I didn’t see Radar, but looking out across the marsh I thought I saw an egret head poking up from among the reeds. Within a short time the egret came busting up and out of the reed area and flew across the water. I immediately saw it was Radar.

He flew over to the other end and started fishing. So once again, all is right with the marsh world.

Fast Fun Flyers

Yesterday afternoon we had a couple of Forster’s Terns working the salt marsh at mid tide. These small terns are built for speed and they can make you dizzy trying to follow them as they fly around searching for a fish.

But it is fun to watch them zipping above the water in quick erratic flights and try to predict which direction one might ‘tern’ next.

Often they do a quick gulp after catching a fish, and other times they fly off with it as this one is doing in these photos.

Our pal Radar even popped up his head for a quick photo bomb as one of the terns jetted by… 🙂

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the marsh and best wishes for a healthy and happy new year!

He’s Back!!

We finally got some good news Sunday morning when we received a report that Radar had been sighted in his usual area around the marsh. The last photos I have of him were taken Nov. 21 so he has been gone for a month. We were all starting to get quite concerned.

He has disappeared before, for even a couple of weeks, but this time everyone was worried that if we never saw him again we wouldn’t know for sure what had happened to him. Radar clearly has some secret place he sneaks off to on occasion! Perhaps the big crowd of pelicans and cormorants that all arrived in November got to be too much for him. He has never been a flock mentality type of bird and is more of a loner. A loner that feels he is head egret and basically owns the marsh.

Today was the first chance I had to go look for him and sure enough, there he was patrolling his territory like he was never gone. He even stared down and chased off another egret that dared to fish in ‘his’ salt marsh.

It was already dark and raining when I was there so it was just well that after about ten minutes Radar took off and flew out across the water.

In any case it was good seeing our electronically enhanced friend! 🙂