Wetland Portraits

This is the final post from my Florida trip - a few "portraits."

Green Heron

Great Blue Heron

Tricolored Heron

Purple Swamphen

White Ibis

... and my two favorites - one with "attitude," and one with "beauty."

Double-crested Cormorant

Tricolored Heron

Good Birding ! !

More Waders

As I continue to review the wetland waders photographed in Florida, I have to give a place of prominence to the Cattle Egret, which were just coming into their nuptial splendor.

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egrets are native to Africa where they forage alongside camels, ostriches, rhinos, and tortoises - as well as farmers’ tractors. The one occasion in Vermont when I saw the Cattle Egret, it was following a tractor as it plowed a field in Spring.




Cattle Egret
These birds somehow found their way to South America; the first record was in 1877, which may make them officially an exotic (non-native). They arrived in the United States in 1941 and were nesting by 1953. Cattle Egrets spread throughout North America and are common to abundant in some areas.

Cattle Egret

When the White Ibis appears in Cape May, it usually creates a stir, with birders carefully reporting its presence and location and pursuing it with considerable intent. This may have been the most common wader I saw in Florida; these birds were wading in wetlands, grazing on lawns, usually in flocks.

White Ibis

White Ibis

Snowy Egrets have made a wonderful recovery from the devastations of the feather trade a hundred years ago, and are common north and south. There will be additional photos of the nuptial splendor of these dainty birds, but this will do for now.

Snowy Egret

True birds of the southern swamps are the solitary and secretive Limpkin (falling taxonomically in the vicinity of the rails and cranes) and the Great White Heron. A bird of the Everglades and Keys, the Great White Heron is currently considered a sub-species of the Great Blue Heron.

Limpkin

Great White Heron

Good Birding!!

Waders on South Padre Island

Our last day in Texas was at San Isabel and South Padre Island, the latter at the newly opened World Birding Center with about a mile of boardwalk over the marsh. Here are a few images of the waders.

Great Blue Heron ...

Reddish Egret ...



White Ibis ...

Tricolored Heron ...

Little Blue Heron ...


I love my digital camera and my Canon 50D. But there is no restraint on picture taking. I returned from Texas with over 1700 photos. I have reduced that number to under a thousand, and I have a long way to go to work through them all. Such fun! And the birding was great! - hope yours is too.

More soon.