Phil Lanoue Photography

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. 🙂

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!

It Was A Nice Quiet Crowd Out There Until…

We had a big crowd of spoonbills and wood storks out this evening and at one point many of them ended up congregating in a near corner of the salt marsh.

Everyone was calm and quiet as the evening feeding was mostly concluded and they were all just standing around socializing and relaxing.

Until… something spooked them and the entire group decided all at once that they had to leave and it had to be right now!

Suddenly the whole bunch of them exploded in a flash of pink and white and they all took off out across the pond area heading for the trees. This capped off an amazing evening when we had 14 spoonbills (and Radar) all fishing in the salt marsh at the same time. It’s a new record!

Snowball’s Big Score

This past week I saw this snowy egret doing some early morning fishing in the salt marsh. Normally we see snowys catch little minnows and tiny glass shrimp, but this guy clearly wanted a big breakfast. He plucked himself a nice size fish out of the water which should keep the little fellow full for a while!

High Drama At The Marsh

This afternoon I was over at the marsh watching some spoonbills feeding off in the distance and hoping they might eventually fly my way.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spot this bald eagle come screaming in at full speed and I knew he must be on a mission! He flew right over my head, so close I could not fit all of him in the camera lens. I immediately saw the object of his attention, he was chasing an osprey that was carrying a partially consumed fish. It’s likely the osprey was relaxing in a tree eating his catch when he got rudely chased out by the eagle.

I could tell from the look on the eagle’s face that he meant serious business and he proceeded to chase the osprey all over the marsh area, from water to tree top level.

The osprey was trying his hardest to use evasive flying maneuvers to lose the eagle but he just couldn’t shake the big guy.

Finally the osprey flew out over the salt marsh where he finally dropped the fish in the water. From a distance I saw the eagle swoop down and try for a grab but he missed it and the fish was now forever lost to both raptors.

Earlier in the day I did notice the bald eagle sitting in a far off tree and now I know what he was waiting for… once again the eagle is fine with letting another bird do all the work while he patiently lurks in the background.