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It was
Shrimp Festival week, so I took the only chance I had for
the week ahead and headed
south. The turtles formed a receiving line to greet me as I came through the gate... |
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This old
fellow even stopped me to inquire where I had been so long. I
told him my pass had
expired and I was waiting until the best time to renew it. That way I could return all the way into next mating season. He was very understanding as I hurriedly said goodbye and rushed off to see the birds. |
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For
those of you who have never been to The Farm the far end tree
which we call The Woodstork
Tree was filled with nesting Woodstorks (no babies there yet) and Great White Egrets. The Egrets did have some hatched kiddies and many more sitting moms, but it was definitely not at the peak I expected. It will still be a a little while before the Little Blues and more of the Cattle Egrets, Little Snowys, and Tricolor Herons are full swing into the nesting mode. |
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The
most exciting thing this year is the number of Roseate Spoonbills
showing up and also the fact
that they are exhibiting more mating and nesting signs than ever before. They have never nested this far north so we are excited at the possibility that these wonderful birds might be hatching chicks right before our eyes. |
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The
colors on this pair was much more intense than usual and could be a
sign of mating plumage
with some interesting interacting and strutting and wing displaying that was out of the usual sleepy mood they normally exhibit. |
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Both
kept messing with the branches as if they were thinking nest building
thoughts. I can't wait to
see how that bill looks on a hatchling. It has to be some of natures finest engineering capability to fit it into a round egg. |
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Many
of the birds I like to photograph like this Little Snowy Egret were
either scarce too far
back in the foliage to get a clear shot. |
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The
colors in the Tricolored bill is a beautiful blue contrasting
nicely with that deep
Indian Red eye. |
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Only
a few Cattle Egrets have arrived and they were as usual pretty
elusive by nesting further away
from the boardwalk. |
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I
spent a lot of time trying to get birds in flight and practice my
manual focus without depending
on the auto setting so much. It was a disappointing day overall with the quality of my photographs ending up mostly in my computers trash bin. |
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| But a few turned out to be not so bad. |
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The
Great Egret chicks which had hatched were not in good shot range
either. More will be hatching
with better visibility later as they continue hatching over the coming weeks. |
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The
Woodstorks were busy egg sitting with others still only in the mating
stage of the game. This
male kept breaking off branches with bunches of leaves and bringing to feather the nest for momma. He would carefully tuck them in around the mother to be. |
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| The soft pillow underneath this lady was actually a bundle of three offspring snuggling and napping. |
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A
glimpse of what the other mom with the calm sleeping children has to
look forward to as these which
were a bit older were up and about the nest, fussing, preening and begging mom for food. This begging will shortly give way to out and out agressive greed before very long. |
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| Some very new
chickies here. |
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| One handsome Snowy with his golden slipper feet majestically sat posing atop an Elderberry bush. |
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| Oh yes, one great show of color from a Roseate overhead. I love that pink. |
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There
were actually three of these Storks lightly floating on the
air currents but my
reaction time was not quick enough to get them all three in the same shot. Such a beautiful wing spread on these birds. |
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I
decided that it was time to head back toward home but took a quick
trip to another part of
the park to see if the Little Green Herons might have started their nesting. They were nowhere to be seen but the McCaws were decked out in their beautiful colors to give me a final burst of color too intense to be for real. |
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The
big red on leaned over to say, "hurry back" to which I replied, "you
can count on it".
But
for now turtle season is starting and the Shrimp are coming to town.
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