On a Cypress, looking around in a rookery.
Wood Storks prefer an isolated location, with a flock of other Storks to nest.
Storks will stop where they see other birds building. Check out the neighborhood, and move on. I rarely see them on nests.
I know of a few Stork rookeries. All are pretty isolated and some protected. That is one of the reason they have made a come back from the brink of extinction.
No effort or thought. He just leaned out and was in the air. They make it look so easy.
Roseate Spoonbill taking flight.
This Night Heron sat in a big tangle of branches and vines. There were several of them, but the old ‘branch in the face’ problem was the rule of the day.
I did get this shot, and his deep red eyes were clear. Only takes one shot so I count this as a win.
These shots were taken after the Black Skimmers third pass. If you’re lucky a Skimmer will be catching enough fish to create a routine on where they skim the surface.
Watching for a pattern is probably one of the few things that can help get a shot. That pattern, usually twists and turns. In this case he flew along the marsh edge, turned away from us through an opening, and suddenly came right by. Basically left to right, with a twist.
From our point of view it meant catching the bird coming in from the right at maximum focal length, then as he disappeared pull back to almost the minimum length. The next return path was that close.
The good news was once the Skimmer was past us we had a few minutes before the next try. It was a big marsh he was working. Time to plan, and laugh. Which we did plenty of, well mostly laugh.
Not exactly the best stick, however she seems OK with it.
This is probably why the big wading birds have such flimsy nests. They never get finished before eggs arrive.
The Snowy Egret was considering giving the Tricolored Heron a little trouble.
He wisely decided not to.
Tricolored Herons don’t consider the Snowy Egret a threat. Most times they are fine together. This small Egret made the right choice though, might not have gone well.
Each spring people everywhere talk about the pollen in the air. Up north we did, down here is different though. We do complain, but we can point at anything outdoors too. It’s covered in green pollen.
Example below; an alligator sleeping and covered in the pollen that drifted on him.
Now that’s pollen !
A series taken at sundown when the Wood Storks gave a great show.
The surface of the water here was bubbling with fish. Not small ones either. I’m not sure if they were spawning or chasing small insects.
Several nights we found ourselves inlets with this type of fish activity. Of course it draws out the wading birds.
