Heron, Egrets, Manatees, and Fish

On a day when I didn’t expect to have much to photograph, it turned out to be a pretty decent day. Starting out on a drive through Ding, there were several Little Blue Herons to see.

The lighting definitely changes how the colors of the little blue heron show up in a photograph.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Reddish Egret standing beside the road at Ding. They are usually in the water doing their dance. And this one posed so nicely for me!

This egret was hiding in the bushes, waiting for breakfast to wander by.

I know there has to be a great caption for the Great Blue Heron cupping his wings in the photo below, but it’s not coming to me. If you have a good caption, put it in the comments at the end of today’s photos!

This was a strange cloud formation that caught my eye.

While taking the photo of the Great Blue Heron cupping his wings on the west side of the drive, we heard someone behind us say, “Oh, look, manatees!” We turned around and saw several manatees playing around on the east side of the drive. When you know how shallow that water is, it is amazing that these huge sea cow creatures can maneuver through the water in that area. I’m not sure how many there were, but it had to be at least 6 or 8. They only surfaced their noses for the most part and would blow bubbles just before surfacing.

Awww. Kiss, kiss!

As we returned home, I thought I saw something on top of the drain grate at the edge of our yard. The drain is connected to the lake behind our house via a culvert. The level of water in the grate is equal to the level of the lake water. We parked the car and then walked around to find out what I’d seen. It turned out to be 4 live gar that were each about 1.5 ft. long. I have no idea if they were Florida Gar or Spotted Gar. I don’t think they were Alligator Gar, but I could be wrong. They obviously had come up through the grate from the lake, but couldn’t get back down into it. So, my husband used the pool net to scoop them up and walked over to the lake and put them back in.

They put up a good fight, but the area of water was so small, it was easy for my husband to trap them with the net.

In the next couple of days, these buds below will turn into gorgeous blooms. If they are pollinated, they will turn into yummy dragonfruit. There are probably 10 blooms on the plant. It’s the second time it’s bloomed this season. Fingers crossed for the fruit to grow.

Ding and Apple Pond

Knowing how to strut your stuff and then doing it . . . Oh yeah!

This little spotted sandpiper was so cute with its breakfast. They bob their back end up and down constantly, whether they are standing still or walking around. It’s like they have their own internal music.

Skating through a Saturday be like . . .

We made a quick stop by Pond Apple Trail. There were a couple of Belted Kingfishers flying around chirping, but they were just too far away to get a good pic. We saw a few cormorants and anhingas.

I’ll caption the following photo of a cormorant and anhinga as:

“Could you do a mate a solid and see if my deodorant is working?”

We almost didn’t see the Great Blue Heron below. It was camouflaged very well. Not a great pic, but interesting how it was hiding.

Starting on Saturday evening last week, we had 12.35” of rain over the next 24 hours at our house. Yards and streets were flooded over the whole island. Some areas were worse than others. When the water receded, there were dead fish in the street and in our yard. The juvenile Yellow-Crowned Night Heron below wanted his share of the fish in our yard.

Powered paragliders and birds

There was a high tide when we were at Ding this morning, so there wasn’t much bird activity. However, a large gator had some thoughts about bird activity. The great blue heron was keeping an eye on it.

I saw the powered paragliders below from near the causeway yesterday morning. I grabbed a photo with my phone before they were out of sight. I can’t imagine strapping a huge fan to my back and taking off like that. The colors make a nice pic against the blue sky, though.

It was very overcast when I took these photos of the eagles in the nest. The sun came out for just a few seconds and I grabbed a couple of good pics. The rest are not great due to the lighting. The clouds constantly changed behind the nest. But, I was so happy to see both eagles in the nest and working on building it up. Fingers crossed for a successful nest this year.

And then there were two!

They had quite the discussion about the sticks that were brought to the nest.

And then back for a while

Eagles are back!!

It was exciting to see an eagle back in the nest this week. For the past two years, I’ve seen them in the nest during the first week of September. Their internal calendar seems to have worked again this year! It remains to be seen if they will spruce up the nest and give it a go. There’s no canopy over the nest since the tree was killed last year.

Our son has been visiting for the last week. He is the real bird lover in the family, so we took a drive through Ding this morning. We were delighted to see at least a few Roseate Spoonbills.

Sneaking away from your parents be like . . . .

We saw a couple of Great Blue Herons

Just as we were nearing the end of the drive, we saw a tree full of Ibis. We stopped so I could grab a photo of them and my son noticed that one Ibis had a crab in its beak. On closer inspection, it was more like the crab was holding the Ibis’s beak closed!

The crab decided to make an escape and the Ibis tried to toss it back into his mouth, but failed to keep his breakfast as it dropped into the foliage below.

We made a stop by Pond Apple trail. There are green iguanas absolutely everywhere there. It’s not very pleasant to walk through them since they aren’t very scared of people.

We walked back into a little alcove next to a creek where we’ve previously seen a Black-Crowned Night Heron. We were lucky to get to see one again today, but I couldn’t get a clear photo of it. They are shy and love to hide. We looked down and saw this big gator right in front of us, though. He looks awfully grumpy.