Subscribe
- A Cottonwood Seed
- BehindTheBins
- Bird Cinema
- Bird Freak
- BirdChaser
- Birdfreak
- Birding for Handicapped
- Birding is Fun
- BirdingOnTheNet
- BirdNote Podcasts
- Birds, Etcetera
- Central NM Audubon
- Chapel Trail Nature Ctr
- Children & Nature
- Cornell Online BirdGuide
- Cottonmouth moccasin
- Eagle Nest
- Great FL Birding Trail
- Hawks Bluff Park
- Illinois Birders' Forum
- Janine Images
- Jones Meadow Park
- Kane County Audubon
- KidWings
- Laura's BirderBlog
- Les Arends FP
- Lippold Park
- Nature Photography
- Nelson Lake FP
- New Jersey Audubon
- Ornithology Course
- Rick Wright
- S Florida Eagle Watch
- Somewhere in NJ
- South Florida Audubon
- SurfBirds
- The Hawk Owl's Nest
- Tropical Audubon
- Tucson Audubon
- Vermillion River Wildlife
- West Miramar ESL
- Wild Bird Wednesday
- WingAndSong NM Blog
- BirdChat
- BirdNote Podcasts
- Bird News Network
- I and the Bird
- My 10 favourite bird books and why
- Birding the Slopes of Turrialba Volcano
- Wiggle like a Woodcock
- Bird Guides of the World: Jeremy Yip, China
- Meeting of the Waters in Manaus, Brazil
- Birding Cat Tien NP, Vietnam (Part 2)
- Where north meets south – wintering gulls off Atlantic Iberia
- Birding Impressions from California
- My 10 favourite bird books and why
- FL Migration Radar
- General
- Birding & Outdoors
- Rutherford & NJ
- NM & SW US
- Florida & SE US
- Medical
- INDEX to Blog
- Hurricane Camille
- Getting Drafted
- Supai Canyon AZ
- Grandchildren
- Sandia Crest
- Capulin Spring
- Illinois
- Birding “Patches”
- Bald Eagle Nest
- Alaska
- MyWorld
- Wild Bird Wednesday
- Book Reviews
- Bird D’pot
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
Posted by: Ken @ 9:47 pm
The sun had not yet crept above the horizon when we set out on the gravel road that leads into the wetlands next to our South Florida home. Mary Lou set a fast pace as usual, and again I fell behind. In her haste she walked right by an abandoned power pole along the road without seeing something interesting. Probably I saw it because the first rays were just hitting as I approached the pole. It was an immature Bald Eagle. I called her cell phone, but by the time she answered the eagle had flown away.
I also stopped to see whether any Bobcats were prowling on the levee. Finding none, I turned back towards the road and captured the rising sun with my compact point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot A1100 IS. The photo turned out very poorly, as the sky was over-exposed and the foreground was almost black. I tried to salvage the photo by using HDR software and got surreal results.
A Northern Cardinal perched in the high grass along the lake.
Common Ground-Doves foraged in the path near the heron rookery. They were quite timid, so I could only get a distant view.
The rookery is situated along the opposite (east) side of a canal. There have been as many as six adult and two immature Yellow-crowned Night-Herons roosting and displaying there this past week. This morning I found five adults, plus a pair of courting Green Herons. I was disappointed to see that maintenance crews from the South Florida Water Management District had applied herbicide to the vegetation along the bank of the canal.
Note the well-demarcated line of brown and denuded branches along the water line. The dead and dying trees are mostly exotic and invasive Brazilian Pepper which crowd out native trees. Most of last year’s heron nests were well-hidden in these trees, usually over the water. In these photos two herons can be seen at one of last season’s nest sites, well within the herbicide-treated zone.
The herons have already been carrying sticks to their old nest sites. Unless the trees recover, their nests and young will be totally exposed. I wonder whether they may now abandon the site.
Unaware of the problem, the herons continued to carry out their courtship rituals, this one on the remains of last year’s nest.
Note the bright red legs of the male heron.
This could be interpreted as a disagreement, but birds cannot change their facial expressions.
It looks as if they have now reconciled their differences!
Time to tend to the plumes.
Here is one of the Green Herons.
I hesitated about posting information about this rookery, discovered last spring by my neighbor, Scott. There is danger of unnecessary intrusion. Yet almost every evening and all weekend there are “recreational” motorists on ATVs and dirt bikes roaring along the west side of the canal, exactly where I stood to take these photos, only about 30 yards away from the rookery. Sure enough, a few birders contacted me and I guided them to see the herons.
One visitor this week was Steven Siegel, who was a consultant and videographer for the movie “The Big Year.” (Coincidentally, Mary Lou and I had just viewed the DVD the night before, and I did not learn of Steve’s involvement until after I met him. By the way, we really enjoyed the movie, accepting the fact that it is a comedy that must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.) You may view an interesting and informative interview with Steven Siegel here: The Z Bird Birding Blog Interview with Steven Siegel, “The Big Year” Videographer