Phil Lanoue Photography

Winter Flight

Bald Eagle flight across the marsh on a cold clear, blue sky day in January.

I liked how the sunlight from the side, lit only a portion of the eagle’s belly, one wing tip, and his face.

The Oyster Bed Freestyle Event

Here’s the gold medal performance for the White Ibis Oyster Bed Freestyle Event held recently in the salt marsh.

Just the right amount of air with feet in the proper position in photo one. Only a slight touch with that right foot in photo two, but an excellent recovery and superb balance is achieved in photo three. The very impressive wings up position in photo four leads to an absolutely perfect landing with a confident look at which point we could all tell the ibis knew he was due a high score!

“Stop! Don’t Look At Me!”

Recently I was watching this egret fishing in the salt marsh and at one point he struck at the water but came up empty on that attempt.

He must’ve been particularly embarrassed that I witnessed the unfortunate scene because he ducked down his head and used his wing to shield his face from any further humiliating photos.

In A Twist

Yesterday afternoon a brown pelican was floating along in the salt marsh when it suddenly did… this!

I’m not sure if it was simply shaking water off itself or had something caught in it’s throat, but I’ve never seen a pelican twist their head and huge bill in this manner.

Not Fast Enough

Recently I watched this snowy egret excitedly break into a full run in the salt marsh during low tide. The snowy had seen something for sure, likely a fish, and was in a hurry to get it. Unfortunately, snowball must have arrived just a fraction of a second too late because he came with nothing but water for all his effort!

Wet But Happy

I went over to the marsh today hoping the eagle may be out creating his usual mayhem with the pond ducks but there was nothing at all going on.

So arriving home empty handed got me looking into some file photos I had taken previously, and this mink photo popped up at me. I forgot I even took this picture of a wet mink that just emerged from the marsh with a nice fresh caught fish in his mouth. The little mink was lit by early morning winter sunlight as it paused briefly with it’s catch before scampering off to a nearby den.

Initiating Landing Procedure

This white ibis really puts on the brakes to prevent a hard landing in the marsh pond last week. It looks like that full wings out position in photo two is the one that significantly drops down the air speed to enable a vertical landing. Nice job by the ibis!

Pelicans Hit The Salt Marsh

This afternoon I arrived at the salt marsh during high tide and was greeted by a small group of adult brown pelicans actively fishing. Brown pelicans are elegant flyers but they always seem to risk life and limb utilizing their fishing technique which is to dive head first into the water. However it is always interesting and entertaining to watch these big birds in action!