5/27/13 Carolyn Happy Place Memorial Day

We went out on Memorial Day and Carolyn was the photographer while I paddled for the most part.

Carolyn really got this Snowy Egret in flight!!

This Cattle Egret wanted us to leave really bad!!

We haven't seen many Roseate Spoonbills out there this year.

I wonder why they call them Spoonbills?

He was all alone just standing up in this tree for the longest time.

It's pretty incredible how well she got the focus on this Black-crowned Night Heron.
It was a long way away!!

It amazes me, but we can get great pictures of the Least Bittern almost whenever we want.

He got a little blurry on her while eating, but it was still pretty cool to be this close while he ate!!

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Where's Waldo?

This picture cracks me up.  Not his best side for sure!!

Okay, I have a confession to make.
I've been thinking for weeks now that this was an immature male Rose-breasted Grosbeak but...
I now know that it is a female Red-winged Blackbird.
So it is incorrectly labeled in all the other posts.  So sorry to have lied!!

Green Heron making a break for it.

This is a Least Bittern nest.  Look closely to see the brown spotted eggs just under the reed in front.
You can't see it, but Caleb and Samantha were using the oars to push the reeds back so that I could get this shot.

Tier was so funny - she would worry about us in the kayak so she would swim out...

...but when she got there she would realize she could do nothing so she'd turn around and head back.

Sammy and I decided to race mom back to the car.  Look at that girl row!!

I'm pretty sure this is a Red-Shouldered Hawk.

Whatever it is, it's unbelievably mangled!!

5/19/13 Happy Place - no kayak. Google Map of Happy Place

We went to the Happy Place on a walk with the dog on a Sunday morning and I took these pictures.

At first this year we thought there weren't as many nesting birds as last year.
But we have found that there are more, just in a different place.

I don't know what kind of bird this is.

Even zoomed in  I still don't know.

These next pictures were taken panorama style.  I took the first then panned right to take the second, etc.  So if you can imagine them all side by side, you can get a feel for how many birds are nesting this year.  First there is a map of the happy place that shows where the pictures were taken from.

We're probably all getting bored of Cattle Egrets by now, but some pictures are still pretty cool.

As we were leaving we saw this Water Moccasin swimming by - if you look close you can see his tongue out.

Again, I think the tongue is pretty cool.

All these pictures are taken from the same spot, just cropped differently to show different levels of zoom.

Kind of creepy huh?

5/18/13 Happy Place Caleb

On this day I rowed and Caleb took all the pictures.  I think he did a pretty good job!!

These Gallinules are a little out of focus (but the reeds look great!!)

Anhinga

I thought this was pretty cool how he got this Anhinga with his neck twisted around like that.

Various shots of Cattle Egrets

Anhinga

More Cattle Egrets

This White Ibis was right in front of us but I hard the hardest time getting Caleb to see it.
It was kind of funny really.  The picture is a little blury but still cool.

Little Blue Heron in flight.