Phil Lanoue Photography

Morning In The Marsh

A bit of a grey, cloudy morning today in the marsh but there was some activity going on.

As usual the alligators felt they needed to be the stars of the show. There had to be ten or more all going about their business which mostly consisted of hunting for breakfast, and a few got up out of the water and took a look around.

One small gator looked on from the shallow water as a great blue heron patrolled his area of the salt marsh.

An egret seemed very interested in watching a spoonbill feed. How odd the spoonies must appear to egrets, plus they fish much differently.

One large alligator popped just his head up to survey the scene. Everything looked Ok so he soon went back under.

An anhinga was quite successful at catching it’s morning meal, I saw it come up with a couple of nice fish.

And I thought I would end this post with a look at some of the lovely pink flowers that adorn the edge of the marsh pond area. 🙂

Incoming Threat?!

This past week I saw a large group of assorted birds suddenly burst up out of the water in a panic and fly off in 50 different directions. A quick scan of the overhead sky revealed the reason. A bald eagle had come rapidly swooping in over the marsh and the smaller wading birds were taking no chances. Although it would be rare for an eagle to attempt to take one of these birds, they will still often instinctively flee at the first glimpse of an incoming large raptor.

From the look on it’s face, this bald eagle was clearly on a mission. So if that’s the impression I got, I’m sure the other birds concluded it would be wise to immediately vacate the area, just to be sure.

Nothing To Worry About Here

This past week I was watching a spoonbill feeding in the salt marsh when it looked like he suddenly got the feeling he should turn around look behind him.

The spoonie saw the alligator creeping up but concluded it was nothing to get overly concerned about so he went right back to fishing as the young gator glided on by….

Dropping In

Earlier this week a roseate spoonbill arrives in the salt marsh for an afternoon visit. It’s always a treat for us when the spoonbills are around. 🙂

Crabby 1…Alligator 0

Crabs are a big delicacy for the alligators, they just love to crunch down a nice fresh, tasty crab. We had already seen this young gator catch and eat a small crab in the salt marsh yesterday evening so we knew what dinner item he was in the mood for.

The young hunter quickly spotted another meal, and this time it would be the main course as it was a much larger blue crab than the one he had caught previously. The alligator went into stealth mode trying to sneak up behind the crab hoping to catch it by surprise and have no trouble munching down the potential tasty treat. An older, more experienced alligator would have been much less subtle in the stalking procedure and likely would have gone for a quick grab and crunch but that was not this young gator’s style.

The youngster took too much time being sneaky and the crab must have heard him coming up from behind because Crabby quickly whipped himself around and raised his claws defiantly.

As the gator inched forward, Crabby reached out with his right claw and gave the gator a good hard pinch on the end of his nose! The startled alligator jerked his head to the side to be free of the crab’s claw while Crabby scurried to his right and partially submerged himself in the mud of a shallow pool while keeping both claws raised in a threatening manner.

The now severely annoyed young alligator backed up and gave Crabby a piece of his mind but Crabby was not impressed because he was the winner today and will live to tell the tale. You don’t get to be a big crab by being timid and Crabby was not prepared to go down without a fight and emerged victorious on this day.

The dejected and defeated alligator turned and slowly slunk off back into the water with a plan to go catch some fish which he knows will put up much less of a struggle.

There’s An Osprey In There Somewhere

Yesterday afternoon there was an osprey circling above the marsh pond hunting for a tasty fish. When I saw him dive down and hit the water I was excited to see that, but was not happy that the location would make him 100% backlit.

I banged off a few shots anyway and could immediately tell the osprey would be lost in all that spray from the splash. But I stayed with it and saw that he did indeed catch a fish which he proceeded to show off by flying right in front of me on his way across the marsh.

I knew there was a bald eagle in a tree on the far side of the marsh pond and expected the eagle to come blasting in to try to steal the osprey’s prize. But the eagle never budged so the osprey got to keep his fish this time.

Late Evening Skim

Yesterday evening, just before we left for the night a black skimmer showed up and made a couple of passes in the salt marsh.

I saw him snap his head back and I knew he nabbed a fish. The skimmer flew across the marsh reeds heading off for the night happily munching down his fish along the way!

Well THAT Had To Hurt!!

Yesterday evening we had a good size group of spoonbills show up. We counted 14 of them which was the most we ever saw together all in one location at the same time.

When you get that amount of almost any of the large waders together you have to figure it’s only a matter of time before an argument breaks out. When it became apparent these two spoonies were going to have a disagreement I was not surprised. However I was surprised when one grabbed the other by the head and shoved it down into the water almost as if it was trying to drown the poor pink spoonbill!

The fight broke up almost as quickly as it started and they both went right back to the business of feeding, but the instigator did seem to be rather proud and happy that he successfully got his point across!