Monthly Archives: August 2023

This is the time of year when Tree Swallows gather in flocks of thousands of individuals on the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. It is quite a spectacle and I have posted photographs from the event in the past. These are a few from this year. This is a small portion of a flock thatContinue reading “Tree Swallows Flocking”

I take some photos that don’t lend themselves to a theme post so I think I will just post some individual photographs that catch my eye and not try to have a theme with multiple photos or a lot of information. The first of these “snapshots” is a Least Bittern that is stalking its preyContinue reading “Snapshot – Least Bittern”

Black Skimmers are common along the Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts of the US. They do migrate a little further north along the coast in the summer, from the Carolinas up to the southern coast of New England. But they are a very uncommon sight north of Cape Cod. This photo was taken on theContinue reading “Found in the Clutter – Black Skimmer”

This was an occasion when it was good to have a camera. You have to have evidence! I was photographing egrets and shorebirds and took some photos of a juvenile Snowy Egret flying across the water. If it was an Osprey, I would think it was carrying its catch. But egrets don’t capture prey andContinue reading “What the Heck?”

This is a little update to the post I made a week ago about a Snowy Egret and a Yellowlegs foraging for food together. I noted that larger groups of egrets, yellowlegs and cormorants will work together to herd schools of fish. This is a small group of Snowy Egrets and Double-crested Cormorants chasing aContinue reading “Fishing Buddies – Update”

I photographed an Osprey as it flew overhead and dove into the water not far away. I captured the start of the dive but it hit the water behind some tall reeds and I missed the impact. It reemerged from behind the reeds with a good sized fish. This big one almost got away asContinue reading “Osprey…the big one didn’t get away”

Found while reviewing some photographs from a past trip. The Crested Caracara, sometimes called the “Mexican Eagle”, resides in Mexico, Cuba, Central America and South America. It shows up in a few small areas in Arizona, Texas and Florida. This one was photographed in Texas in 2019. It looks like a hawk but it isContinue reading “Found in the Clutter – Caracara”

Snowy Egrets are active hunters of small fish and invertebrates. Unlike the larger Great Egret that waits in ambush or slowly stalks its prey, Snowys will run, hop, flutter their wings, stir up the water and generally cause commotion to flush their prey. Yellowlegs are shorebirds that are also very active feeders. Mixed groups ofContinue reading “Fishing Buddies”

I almost overlooked the action in this photo of a Least Tern as I was clearing out a lot of photos of terns in flight, most of which were either repetitive or very poor. Fortunately I cropped this image for a better look before deciding to delete it. The Tern had just missed a fishContinue reading “Found in the Clutter – Tern Action”

The largest gull in the world is the Great Black-backed Gull and it is common along the Atlantic coast of North America. Cornell Lab refers to it as “the king of the Atlantic waterfront”. Great Black-backs are 30 in (up to 80 cm) long and are known as aggressive hunters, pirates and scavengers. They huntContinue reading “Great Black-backed Gull”