We started out the day yesterday with an unusual and beautiful sunrise. I hoped it was a sign for a good morning at Ding. And it was! The only issue was that I took hundreds of photos that took me all day to go through yesterday. I finally cut that down to 40 photos, so I will spare you and only post some of them today and the rest tomorrow!
Happy Father’s Day to dads everywhere.
The nesting update will be in the photos that I post tomorrow. All of the photos today were from one spot on Wildlife Drive at Ding, where there were probably 100 birds of several different species. They were all squawking, feeding, and flying back and forth. We have been lucky to happen upon this type of gathering a few times. It is always an amazing experience and a sight to behold.
Just in this one photo, there are Ibis, Great White Egret, Little Egret, Roseate Spoonbill, and Little Blue Heron.
There were so many birds, some were in the bright sunlight and some in the shaded area. The water caught the reflections of the birds, the trees, or the sky, depending on where they were standing. I didn’t know where to look and which photos to capture!
I love the reflection of the LIttle Egret in the photo below.
There must have been a large school of small fish in this area. The Little Egrets would fly across, dragging their feet, dip their beak in the water and come up with a small fish. The rest of the birds seemed content to be fishing along the edge or just basking in the sun.
The video below was the only one that I could get where no one was talking loudly beside me. It’s a terrible video, but at least you can hear some of the bird squawking that was going on. The official Ding Darling FaceBook page has a much better video showing the birds at this spot yesterday.
Looks like the fish was missed on this pass. Not for lack of trying though.
Some of these photos will look similar. I took so many of the Little Egrets skimming across the water and grabbing the small fish. It was just so fascinating.
The next two are the same bird, but just in different poses and lighting.
The photo below goes against the rules for photo composure. The subject should be coming into the photo, not leaving, but I like the trail of disturbed water from the Little Egret dragging its feet across the surface, after catching a fish.