I was surprised when I realized that my last posting of Sanibel birds was in August. Time goes by way too fast these days! I met a couple of friends at Ding this past Thursday morning. The fog was so thick that we could hardly see the birds near the edge of Wildlife Drive. The fog didn’t lift until almost noon. It makes for grainy photos, but still interesting. Our first glimpse of the water is below. It didn’t get much better than this all morning!
There was one lone Reddish Egret and then he was later joined by a few more birds.
I think these are Willets with the Reddish Egret, but I’m not sure.
Then, a male and female Hooded Merganser showed up. While there are lots of sightings of them, this was the first time I’d seen them at Ding.
The Hooded Merganser pair eventually came closer so that I could get a somewhat clearer photo. I could only get a good shot of the male’s face, though. They are cool looking birds.
At this time of year, we would normally see hundreds of white pelicans. I guess the one below was the only one to brave the fog that morning!
This Little Blue Heron below has just a tiny bit of his white morph left on his chest. We could barely see him through the fog. He blended in with the background. He stuck his head up and we saw him.
Then, over to Pond Apple Trail. The fog was only a bit less dense. There were lots of Wood Storks to photograph.
The young Wood Stork below seemed to be looking for his mother.
“How about you? Are you my Mother?”
“No, I am NOT your Mother!!”
“Oooh! Hey, Lady, are you my Mother?”
In one little area at Pond Apple, we found a juvenile Black-Crowned Night Heron, a juvenile Iguana, and a juvenile Alligator. We named it the nursery!
This young gator was about 18 to 24” long.
If you would like to see some more pics that were taken from our back yard over the past couple of months, please click on the Wild In Florida tab at the top of the page.