Battle of the Egrets

Hubs and I spent an hour this morning at the FL DMV getting our cars registered, and a driver's license for him. The people at the DMV are really very nice and the process was quite efficient - but, wow, is it expensive to register a car for the first time in FL! It cost us $800 to register both cars - yikes! But, we are now both officially residents of the Sunshine State now.

After the DMV, I drove down to Ft. DeSoto for a morning of nature. I was secretly hoping that I might see my first Reddish Egret - it is the only of the long-legged wading birds in this area that I've not ever seen. And today was my lucky day because as I was strolling along the pier, I spied this young reddish egret mixing it up with a bunch of snowy egrets. I stayed around for 30 minutes or so, watching him/her. I even got to see the "fishing dance" that these egrets are known for - basically, they run around in the water, flapping their wings to stir up the fish. It's quite impressive and something I've wanted very much to see. I chose this photo because I like shots like this that show interaction between creatures. It's not technically the best photo of the day, but that's not my criteria here.

After that excitement, I headed to the North Beach area of the park to explore. There is a huge section of the shoreline on the NB that is roped off and off-limits to humans because it is shorebird nesting habitat. However, armed with Big Daddy I was able to see that there were several hundred Black Skimmers on the outer shore. At one point, they took flight and I was able to get some interesting shots. I also saw at least 100 palm warblers feeding in the pines between the beach and the parking lot. They were unconcerned by my presence and I was able to stand in the woods while they flitted all around me. Pretty magical stuff.

I took about 400 photos and was able to cull that down to about 50 or so that I've kept. If you are feeling very brave, I've posted 16 of my favorites on Flickr, starting here with a palm warbler Included are several shots of the reddish egret doing his fishing dance - good for a laugh, I think.

I think I will head north of St. Pete tomorrow morning up towards Tarpon Springs to an area called Howard Park. At least, that is my plan as of now...

Thank you for stopping by!

Debbi