Sibling Rivalry

I'm still fighting with Blogger to try and get it to post pictures directly from Picassa. This one is acting like it's going to work, so perhaps I've fixed it. Maybe. Anyhow, I took this picture a couple of weekends ago at the Venice Rookery, a great place to spy on birds as they raise their young. In this case, it's a great blue heron with some loud youngsters. You can easily pick out the youngsters as they're the ones with the crazy haircuts. I guess all kids are the same across the different species.

Old Birds

I took these detail shots of an old mural hanging over the former Pelican Man Bird Sanctuary on City Island in Sarasota last night. It's currently being run under the name Save Our Seabirds, and I really need to get out there again and take some pictures. I liked the way the old mural is fading away and showing more and more of the wood grain in the plywood underneath. I think that's why you always use a good primer coat under your murals. Anyhow, that's a great blue heron above, with a little bit of pelican to the right.

Here's the rest of the pelican that you're missing in that top picture.

And this one shows an anhinga drying his wings.

This panel manages to squeeze in a little blue heron on the left and a roseate spoonbill on the right. Oh what I wouldn't give to get all of these birds into the same picture.

Breakfast Madness

Next time you feel like your kids are pestering you to death for something, some back and look at this post. From the Venice Rookery on Saturday, this is an adult great blue heron trying to feed two almost-grown babies. I guess they are still too young for solid food, so she's got to regurgitate some food for them. And they don't want to wait for that to happen.

Oh, the horror!

I almost can't look at this.

It's like the two of them are fighting over who gets to attack Mommy with their pointy bill.

And I guess the farther you jam mommy's beak down your throat, the less likely you are to spill any of her nutritious vomit.

Either Mommy can only take so much at a time, or she has to reprime the vomit pump once in a while.

But these babies just aren't going to wait for that to happen.

Mmmm, good. Regurgitated fish guts!

Mommy needs another breather.

But that's just not going to happen with these two hungry brats.

These shots are all in the order I took them, but I didn't include all of them. Usually it devolved into a mass of necks, beaks and wings where you can't hardly make out who's who or what's what. So these are just the cream of the crop where you can actually see what's happening.

And you thought your kids had bad table manners?

This is just getting bad...

I think Mommy has had just about all of this that she can take. Remember, she's been feeding these two for almost a month now, and it's probably been like this the whole time. I think both parents tend the nest, so my saying Mommy all the time may be misleading. Imagine a single parent having to raise two of these little brats. 50% of the time is more than enough!

Yep, Mommy has had her fill. With little warning, she turns around and heads for a nice safe tree far away from her not-yet-flying youngsters. She never even looks back.

I'm sure she's thinking about how pretty soon they'll be flying on their own. Then they'll follow her and want even more food. And maybe she's thinking about migrating to some nice adults-only island where there are no baby great blue herons.

Frozen In Time

There's just something amazing to me about the camera's ability to freeze a moment in time. Add in to that the way birds can somehow cheat gravity to fly, and you get some great pictures. This great blue heron was coming in for a landing on his nest at the Venice Rookery this weekend, and I just happened to get some good shots.

They're just a tad overexposed, but I'm my own worst critic. They're still some great shots. And I've got dozens more I want to share with you. You'll be all birded out before I get to the bottom of the stack. Hopefully I can mix it up enough to hold your interest.

Like Clockwork

As expected, the sun went down this evening. And I happened to be there with my new 7D, my rented 400mm lens and a monopod. The only thing I was missing was sufficient memory for said camera. This camera uses compact flash memory, same as the camera before last. Back then, at 8 megapixels, 10.5 gigabytes seemed like a lot of memory. Now, at 18 megapixels, I think 40 gigabytes is going to be closer to the mark. But I did put what little memory I had to good use, and caught these two great blue herons as they enjoyed the sunset.

Down At The End

There were so many people at Siesta Beach this evening, I had to do something to get out of the crowds and wait for the sunset. So I just started walking. I walked and walked and walked, until I reached the end of the beach. Well, the beach doesn't really end, but someone did build a house out on the point, and that's pretty much the end of the public beach. But if you hop up on the seawall surrounding the house at low tide, you can get around to the other side, and there I found something that I had not seen in Florida before. The end of the beach is called Point of Rocks, and among those rocks are a series of tidal pools. I thought those were a California only thing, but there it was. Lots of little shallow areas among the rocks, with all sorts of little critters in there.

As you can see, the rocks go on for quite a ways. The further you go, the more life you find because curious tourists haven't walked all that way and pulled all the critters out of their homes.

Some searching yielded this mollusk and sea urchin together. There were plenty of both all around, but this was the only pair I found together. I think these guys are enemies, so they don't hang out together too much.

Probably the top predator in these waters is the great blue heron. This guy was keeping his eye on a small trickle of water draining from one of the larger pools. Anything hoping to make it out to the open water had to get past him first. I was pretty surprised to find this area, and I hope to get back when the light is better. I also need to find a closer place to park so that I don't have to walk more than a mile down the beach each way. Time to break out Google Earth!

The Ruckus

I think I mentioned a ruckus at the rookery on City Island. Well, here's some pictures of a very similar, if not identical ruckus. It's just a parent great blue heron, on the left, and a petulant juvenile who wants his dinner and wants it now. Just gaze at these pictures and imagine some extremely loud bird squawks to get the idea. No, louder. Louder! LOUDER! That's close.



I have to believe that this youngster is pretty close to fledging and flying away to live on his own. His coloration is all there, and he's almost the same size as his parent. I guess I missed most of the baby bird season this year. Too bad.

The Curious Heron

Little did I know when I set out this evening to shoot the sunset that I wouldn't get a single shot of the sun setting. Nor did I know it was going to be such a good day for birds. I was on City Island, just off-shore from Sarasota proper, hanging out near the boat ramp where there is a small rookery. This great blue heron was down in the mangroves, only a foot or so above the water. Normally, that would be in the dark, but with the low sun behind me, he was well illuminated. In fact, he was too well illuminated. The background was dark, and I had to manually adjust the camera to get a good exposure. But I think I did OK. He's got an eye cast upward because there was a ruckus in a nest up above him. They were making lots of noise, and I guess he's just trying to see what all the fuss is about.

Fresh Florida Seafood

Did I mention how good it is to be back in Florida after spending four days in cold, snowy Ohio? They just don't get the fresh seafood like we do here.

Another Big Bird-Classic Ernie

OK, I promised some Classic Ernie pictures to break up the doodle monotony, so here's a close-up for you of a Great Blue Heron. This big fellows stand over three feet tall, and only marginally tolerate people in their territory. If you get too close they fly off with a loud squawk. Unlike the sandhill cranes I showed you earlier, these guys will fly off rather than attack. The sandhill cranes will actually come at you on occasion. This shot above is from South Lido Beach on the same day as this sunrise I previously shared. The picture below (a page from my August 2004 wall calendar) was taken at the Anna Maria City Pier. This gives you a pretty good idea of how large these guys are.