Another Glorious Morning

(March 30th) In Florida there are so many great places to choose from. I decided to risk it a little and see a new place. I woke up early and drove in the dark to Tigertail Beach. Of course I got there to find the entrance closed for another 45 minutes. After shooting a Burrowing Owl for the 45 minutes, I went in to find a great location. The light was dancing, the wading birds were active, all-in-all it was a great time. One of my first subjects was a white morph Reddish Egret. The white morph is a treat - only about 10% of the species is this morph.

I ran into a bunch of snowy egrets doing another mode of hunting. Here they were stomping the mud at the bottom. After watching for a while, it made sense. They were agitating the mud to get shrimp to move. Then they would strike. Here you can see one individual who got one, but then he had to run from the rest of the egrets that wanted a piece of the shrimp!

There was no paucity of waders... Several Tricolored Herons were around as well. This one gave me some great curves.

The wind picked up a bit on the water. Feathers tend to be stiffer than hair (human at least), so it needs to be a fairly brisk wind to blow around the feathers like on this shot of the Tricolored.

There were a lot of other birds at Tigertail. I saw some nesting osprey and lots of terns and pelicans. There also were numerous shorebirds. With very few people around, they were very comfortable in my presence. So I went for a shot to capture the calm of the experience.

After having a great time at Tigertail beach I headed out. The guard at the beach had told me of a nearby Bald Eagle nest, so I checked it out. It was very cool - the offspring were almost full grown and ready to leave the nest. People weren't allowed to get at all close to the nest, so I sat and waited for an adult to fly in. After an hour of waiting, I snapped a flight shot. Not great, but it's my first passable Bald Eagle shot. Then it was time to head out to the next location...