This is a pretty common shot here with the big Herons.
The trails through this local swamp are tight, wind around the waters edge, and have a few sharp turns. This leads to accidental meetings, up close.
Neither knows what’s going to happen, so both just keep walking. Minimal eye contact is the trick. You can, like here, get a quick shot, just keep going.
No eye contact works more than you would think. It’s for birds and animals, yes even Alligators.
Best viewed large.
No big story here. This is from a ‘one of many’.
In this case a hawk that dropped down nearby while in the swamp. The never take just one rule applied here. So I have a nice collection of this bird, from multiple angles.
If you give a Red-shoulder space while they’re hunting you can usually get plenty of shots.
Specs; OM-1 mk2, OM 100-400 ll, Lightroom.
One of the nice things about being in a place with many birds and activity is you can step back and (try) to pick and choose your shots. These shots are just that.
I was standing on the edge of this swamp area just watching small herons and egrets wandering the brush and fishing the swamp.
This Little Blue didn’t seem to like the clutter. He would take a step, flap around, deep breath, and try again. I grabbed a few shots because these birds should be seasoned hunters, not prima donnas. 🤣
This is a common sight here, but he/she does look pathetic. 🥹
We have been on the House Finch tour for years. There are always one or more that settle in. This one is especially young but by sitting on top of a feeder the others eventually come back around and all is fine.
We usually just ignore them, they have food and water, and in an hour or so they either join other finches, or the Titmice lol. Little flocks pop out of the woods all day long.
This year may have been the best for the future of the Wood Storks.
Rookeries that never had any storks now have nesting pairs almost everywhere. In 2016 they were right up there on the list of endangered species. There were 11 nestlings in South Carolina.
The delisting was official March 2026. Also the last count of nesting pairs was now 4,000 in South Carolina.
One of those times standing there and waiting paid off.
Tricolored Heron dropping down into the brush.
A big nosed bird, standing on his head, in swamp water. You would laugh too.
Best viewed large.
White Ibis, South Carolina.
Given I’ve been publishing Yellow-crowns lately thought I would give equal time to their close cousin the Black-crowned Night Heron.
Just about everything you can say about one Night Heron, you can say about the other. Maybe these birds are a little less fond of dark swamps. Both Night Herons chicks look almost identical for the first year or so.
These birds were photographed in a rookery also. They nest on the exact opposite side of the big ponds in the Port Royal rookeries.
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