Phil Lanoue Photography

A Little Night Fishing

Although it was close to sunset, this young tricolored heron remained alert in the marsh one day last week.

It often pays to keep your eyes open out there even as it begins to get dark. You never know when an evening meal opportunity will present itself.

Nice Day For A Flight

This past week a bald eagle decided to sit high up in a pine tree and enjoy some afternoon sun along with a panoramic view of the marsh.

The eagle must have spotted something because he didn’t stay in the tree for long. With a jump and a flap of those huge wings, this eagle was airborne and past me in a flash. From there it seemed to be an almost effortless glide with only minimal wing action required.

Nice day for a flight!

“Radar” At Sunset

Most of you know our good buddy Radar. He’s the great egret with the tracking antenna pack attached to his back. As always, Radar is head egret in charge of the marsh and keeps everybody including, the alligators, in line.

Last week as I was leaving for the evening, I saw Radar perched at the edge of the marsh enjoying his view. He was silhouetted by warm setting sunlight and as usual has a commanding appearance. 🙂

Fun Morning Of Fishing

I was watching a young brown pelican exuberantly fishing in the marsh this morning. The youngster seemed quite thrilled to be out there splashing around and I did see him scoop up a few mouthfuls of fish…so apparently the technique is quite successful!

The First Step Is The Hardest

This morning I spotted this blue heron in a tree along the edge of the marsh. It was an odd place for the bird to perch and I suspected it would not stay there very long.

That was indeed the case as the GBH suddenly threw up his wings in preparation for departure. Except his exit was not particularly graceful, it looked more like he fell out of the tree.

He did manage to quickly regain balance and go into a fairly smooth glide mode and then head out across the pond area. But it reminded me of a cat that falls awkwardly but still does manage to land on it’s feet and then gives you that look like… “What? I wanted to do that.” 🙂

Sunset Flight

Earlier this week, a brown pelican flies above the tree tops silhouetted by warm setting sunlight.

These Little Birds Are Fast! But Not Always Fast Enough…

Earlier this week we had a few of these little super fast flying terns fishing in the salt marsh.

They make me dizzy trying to follow one as it darts about erratically at hyper speeds.

At one point I was tracking this tern as it came swooping in and then seemed to zero right in on it’s prey. It did a quick hover, followed by a rapid descent, where it appeared to have successfully grabbed a nice fish.

But either the tern was so fast it didn’t take time to get a good grasp on the fish, or the fish in this case was even faster then the tern. Because the bird blasted up out of the water minus the fish who could be seen safely swimming away.

I did see some fish get nabbed by these fast flyers, and I’ll have photos of that scene a little later on.

“Where Are You Going?!?”

This morning we had our resident mated pair of bald eagles flying in and out of a pine tree along the edge of the salt marsh.

They started out each sitting quietly on their own separate branch. But soon one of them (we suspect it was the male) began to get a bit restless, hopping up onto the branch above his mate. His intentions quickly became clear as he jumped off leaving the lovely Mrs. Eagle alone in her tree.

Notice the shocked expression on her face in the fourth photo. By the last photo it seemed like she just resigned herself to being left. She had a look on her face as if she was thinking… ‘Here we go again, typical morning in the marsh’. 🙂