The Shorebirds Of Island Park

Here are a few birds I shot this evening while at Island park in Sarasota. I had wanted to go down to the beach to shoot the sunset, but at the last minute, I decided to go to this park just outside of downtown Sarasota. Sunset was a bust, so I was glad I stopped there and was able to shoot these birds. The guy with the crab above is some sort of sandpiper, I believe. The dark colored fellow below is a reddish egret, I think. He's a little big to be a little blue heron, and he's certainly not a great blue heron. He's lacking the reddish color on the neck, as well as the puffy feathers, but the dark tip on his bill seems to be the giveaway. Next down the page is a green heron in mid-hunt. These guys are really skittish, so I was lucky to get a good shot. Twice already I had scared him off when I got too close. And speaking of getting too close, the last shot is a great white egret in flight. I got too close to him, too, but I was able to squeeze off a couple of blurry shots of him flying around. Don't look at that one too close, since it's not the sharpest image I ever snapped.