Just like lining up dominoes, it takes only 1 to move for all the others to follow.
The Egret and Spoonbill were doing fine, but look in the back and you see several Teal’s and Godwit’s making a run. In a flash the Egret had her wings up.
Suddenly a quiet scene becomes chaos.
Click, or double tap, any image to view the gallery.
The good news, I was standing there shooting it all.
This is a scene I walked up to the other morning. Peaking over the tops of the tall reeds you could see thousands of wading birds feeding. In truth I could hear them long before.
The water around here was lowered the previous day by the Dept. Natural Resources. A temporary draining of marshes helps clean out vegetation. It takes 24 hours for the large birds to start showing up.
Every species I could think of was around the area this last week.
Right about the time this is published I should be standing at this spot. Somewhere around 4 miles back in the marsh, looking for this guy.
Because we are so busy this time of year I try to keep a little ahead with publishing.
Processing / developing is a different story. I am always behind on that work. Two days ago I shot 1,200 photographs of Wood Storks… yeah I am way behind.
With luck the water is low and birds still hungry. If not, well this is my office so how bad can it be !
This group was plowing through the water, moving past, and wanting to get some distance between us. One of them discovered something and I was suddenly not all that important.
They did keep watch, but sifting through the shallows was not going to be stopped for some human standing on the dry land.
Most of this group was busy feeding. However this one took time out to wonder what we were up to. Very curious about us.
At least for a while. Then back to more important things.
These photographs were taken as different groups of birds decided to move to a new corner of a marsh. Which was good for me since it was near where we were headed.
There was a lot of movement so image composition was not a consideration, or even a fleeting thought. I had a flock of large birds landing in front of me.
Of course they didn’t stay long, but I was still in sight of the next stop.
Above is a favorite here so if the water is low they will ultimately land here. It makes a nice wide shot of bird flocks and I have photographed this before.
The big Spoonbills did not intimidate this smaller Heron at all. I watched him spot something and weave his way between the Spoonbills.
The other birds ignored him too.
He was focused on some movement on the other side of this group.
And he was correct, there was something.
He never hesitated, just reached out and grabbed something so small I couldn’t see it. They hunt the tiny fish as if they were a trophy.
This was an unusually large bowl of Spoonbills for around these marshes. This year they were also much more tolerant of us.
With luck they will be around for awhile longer.
