Phil Lanoue Photography

Bath Time

Clapper Rails are generally rather secretive and elusive birds. They can often be heard loudly squawking while hidden in among the reeds in the salt marsh, but rarely are they seen. Occasionally a clapper can be spotted out in the open and earlier this week I found this one that decided now was the perfect time for a bath!

The rail splashed around in the salt water making sure all the feathers got a good rinsing. Then once the bathing portion of the day was concluded, it scurried out of the water and back to the hidden safety provided by the reeds.

Late Evening Activity

The storm clouds rolled into the marsh area yesterday evening and the rain that followed eventually chased me from the area.

But before I left I did see some activity.

We had an egret come jetting across the marsh reeds in a big hurry.

A wood stork decided to step out of the water and relax on his knees? Elbows? I’m not sure. It didn’t look very comfortable to me but Woody seemed fine with his unusual position.

A spoonbill spent a bit of time making sure his pink feathers were all nice and fluffy.

And a young black skimmer made a few passes through before packing it in for the night.

Flying Cover

This evening an egret did a quick glide over and past a pair of spoonbills that were busy feeding in the salt marsh.

The spoonbills never even looked up as the egret flew by, the fishing was just too good to pay any attention to a big white bird.

Spoonbills In The Afternoon

Here are a few spoonie shots from yesterday afternoon in the salt marsh.

In the last photo you can see a group of wood storks feeding in the background.

It was a busy day out there too. We had black skimmers, a couple of alligators, assorted egrets, ibis, and herons, and naturally Radar was there to oversee it all. I’ll have to post some shots of our head egret in charge soon, he is quite the character!