Flight School!

(March 31st) Flight is perhaps the single most identifying aspect of birds. I know, technically not all fly and it's really feathers that make a bird a bird, but people think flight when they think birds. Today I was on a mission to see if I could get some decent flight shots of birds. I returned to Corkscrew Swamp and on the walk in stumbled across this doe with her fawn.

As I mentioned earlier, the Snowy Egrets in the swamp were involved in this elaborate fishing behavior. They'd fly over the little bit of remaining water and dart there head in to grab a fish. Many times they were unsuccessful, but they did catch quite a few on the wing. Of course this meant that they were flying!

Photographically, it was a little bit challenging. There wasn't much light beneath all the trees of the swamp. And the birds are white too, making it easy to blow some highlights. Not to mention needing to catch a sharp image... Flash is not an option because these birds are usually wet. It was a bit tricky, but while I think I can improve on it in the future, I was satisfied with the results.

I didn't just watch the flying birds. It is hard to ignore the reptilian king of the swamp - the American Alligator. While I grew up with these guys, they still are quite impressive, especially when you have giants like the ones in Corkscrew.

The Snowy Egrets would fly across this tiny remnant of water, landing on either side. Sometimes they would land on the shore, or in muck, but a few of them would land on logs. These spots were highly coveted and the birds would often chase others off their perch.

The Snowy Egrets weren't the only ones fishing in this last remnant of water. There were Roseate Spoonbills, Wood Storks, Great Blue Herons, Night Herons, Great Egrets, as well as Anhingas like this one. To me there was something comical about this bird with the large sunfish on its bill.