Big day today, finally completed a project I’ve been working on for several months. This is actually a double benefit since not only can I set my sights on a new endeavor, there’s one more post topic in the hopper. Now only need to process the 20o pictures and get them ready for the blog .. don’t panic, probably won’t subject you to all of them … or maaaayybbee hehehe. Until then, figured I’d try to wrap up the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve visit. Other photo shoots are starting to back up in the queue and need to get at least a few of them out of the way to make room for the new year. You may recall there was a post earlier in the month on the Great Egret (link here). We were lucky enough to have multiple encounters with various Egrets and at one point they decided to put on a show!
I really like this shot for a number of reasons. Clearly the birds themselves were captured in similarly unique poses which shows off how pretty these birds are. The large one is the Great Egret and based on what I can tell of the bill from this angle, the smaller one is a Little Egret – possibly Snowy but the neck seems a little long for that. They reminded me of Guardian Angels with their pure white wings raised up like that. After a little bit you tend to get curious and your eyes start to wander. Following the Little Egret you notice some Grebes passing by – wonder if the Egret was trying to scare them away from their feeding area. They were coasting by without alarm so doubt the Grebes cared much. Still searching you start looking at what has the Great Egret’s attention. That leads to the American Coot somewhat hidden in the dark colors. Turns out that Coot also has its wings out basically taunting them – I have already documented how those Coots like to mock their pond mates (link here). Some of you may have already seen this shot a little earlier – accidentally put it up on Birding Across America site (link here) before remembering it had not debuted here yet – oops.
Not wanting to be left out, another Egret decided to join the festivities. Can really see the span of those huge white wings on the Great Egret from this angle.
Hit the jump to learn why these Egrets were so annoyed!
