Mutual Of Ernie's Wild Kingdom

Sometimes, you just get a lucky shot. I had waded into the water a short ways yesterday at Robinson Preserve to get a picture of an osprey. As I was shooting him, I heard some people in kayaks behind me describing some fins in the water, wondering if they were sharks or dolphins. Since I was in the water already, I hoped they were dolphins, and that turned out to be the case. The osprey flew away and I turned my attention to where these fins were, and suddenly the water just offshore seemed to explode with activity. I pointed my camera in the right direction and saw a couple of dolphin fins sticking up from the shallow water. I started tracking them and shooting, and this is what I got. Two dolphins were playing with some fish, sheepshead to be exact. As you can see in this shot, he's tossed the fish completely out of the water. Those two pelicans saw what was going on and were high-tailing it to the spot to try and get some free lunch out of the deal. I kept shooting the dolphins for as long as I could, but this was the only time I caught them with a fish out of the water. It was a pretty impressive sight.  I'd post more pictures, but Picasa still isn't working with Blogger.  Must be a problem on my end.

Snow Bird

Yes, we have lots of pelicans in Florida, but not like this, or at least not all of the time. Most of the year, Florida is populated by brown pelicans, but during the cold months, we get large flocks of these white pelicans down from up north. They seem to prefer the fresh water, but you will occasionally find them in salt water. Brown pelicans are the opposite, they like the salt, but sometimes you'll see some inland where the water is fresh. They're just all mixed up somehow. As you can see, the white ones aren't entirely white, they've got some black accents under the wings that gives them a distinctive look when they're flying. And that bump on the beak is some sort of sex thing. The males get it during breeding season, and then it goes away. Perhaps the females find it attractive.

Peli-Can

One more bird on the wing for you from last Saturday. This time it's a lonely pelican, heading who knows where. Sometimes these guys just seem to pick a direction and fly for no apparent reason. But I guess we can't know what they're thinking. They probably wonder why people are always headed off in their little cars to no apparent destination, or at least to no place that has any fish.

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.

Spotlight On Flight

I shot this pelican this evening out at the Anna Maria City Pier. The sun was going down behind me, and I noticed that birds were flying though the light occasionally. I waited until I caught one in the right place at the right time, then laid on the shutter release. Pretty cool the way he's highlighted as he moves through the air.

Sky Clowns

Who haven't I shown you today? Oh, yeah, pelicans. Heaven knows we have pelicans around here. They are everywhere. They are big and goofy. Sorry, but I can't think of anything clever to say about them. Perhaps 13 bird posts in a row is just too many...