Great Blue Heron

The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is a beautiful and majestic bird. We are blessed here in SE Florida to have easy access nature preserves to watch the behavior of these birds.

They are typical of the wetlands we have here in Florida and easily find the fish they eat at Wakodahatchee. Herons also may eat insects and shell fish, if available.

With nesting materials

They have been nest building for some time and can often be seen with rather large branches in their beaks. Like the Anhingas we talked about in the last post, the Great Blues regurgitate food for their young.

The adults are among the largest herons in the world and have few natural predators – with the exception of eagles and certain owls and hawks.

What's in there for me?

The Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) is quite common in southeast Florida and is seen here at Wakodahatchee Wetlands feeding its young fledglings. These birds are also known as the American Darter and snakebirds.

The birds (both male and female) dive for fish and other available food like small snakes. They begin the digestion process for the young birds who lack the proper enzymes at their tender age. It has been little a bit more than a month since these birds were hatched. Once they leave the nest they will have to wait for two years before becoming parents themselves.

Feeding behavior

The young then retrieve their meal by “diving” down the neck of their parent for their food. The birds are nesting on an island that is fairly close to the boardwalk at Wakodahatchee and I used a Canon 70-200 L f4 for these images.

The adults regurgitate the food for the chicks to eat. Both parents feed the fledglings – they are monogamous mating pairs throughout the breeding season.

Once the fledglings are older they will eat whole fish, etc. Within about two weeks, these birds will learn to hunt for themselves and leave the nest. Additional photos of these Anhingas can been seen on my photo gallery.

Gordon Brown

I spent the afternoon as the FOTOshoot assistant to Gordon Brown and Steven Nestler. Also along was Ray Gehman. What a treat to “rub shoulders” with these guys. Gordon worked at Kodak (RIP) and had the honor of naming the T-Max film. He is a photographer, author and workshop leader (and had the distinction of representing Kodak at the Ansel AdamsWorkshops for many years).

Steven Nestleer

I met Steven a couple of years ago at FOTOfusion. He is a well-known landscape photographer and has images in many museums around the country. Although he is noted for working with a 4×5 view camera, today he had a mere DSLR. Another friend, Ray Gehman, was present. Last year I did Butterfly World with him. Ray was a photographer for National Geographic Magazine for many years.

Anhinga Femaie

We were at Wakodahatchee in the middle of the day – not the best time or light for taking photos. But I did manage to get a few that were worthy of keeping. The anhingas were still nesting and this female was on a nest. Except for a few ducks and the occasional blue heron, there was not much going on.

Taken with the Canon 300 L f/4 IS.

Rob Sheppard

It was a great pleasure to be the assistant on Rob Sheppard’s photoshoot in Unbelievable Acres for FOTOfusion. Rob is a well-known nature photographer and author of many photo books and articles in Outdoor Photographer. I have been “following” him on his blog for some time and it was great to spend time with him this morning.

We talked about his approach to shooting nature subjects. Although I have read many of his articles, face-to-face discussion can’t be beat.

Unbelievable Acres is a private “jungle” with so many species of plants that it is hard to count them all. The “FOTOshoot” focused on story telling in macro and close-up. I did have some time to take photos here in a relaxed atmosphere with our students.

Photos taken with the Canon 70-200 f/4 IS.

The Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), photographed hiding amongst the branches wears a size 45 short (he is a lot more stocky than his other heron brethren).

This one appears to be a juvenile – his feathers are a lot more grey in color than the adult white. Not surprising since there are many birds nesting in Wakodahatchee this season.

I caught this one in full cry with a Canon 300L f/4 IS hand-held.

Ah, the misunderstood grebe. Is he a duck or not? Our pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) here was photographed at Wakodahatchee on a early winter morning. He has webbed-toes rather than webbed-feet like a duck. This breeding adult is very common on North America lakes and ponds. According to Wikipedia, the grebe may be related to – wait for it – the flamingo. It would make his mother proud 🙂

The double breasted cormorant is fairly common in SE Florida and they have been nesting in Wakodahatchee. The first image is a portrait of the bird (which is only about two-feet long). It has the typical hooked bill and orange throat, but I have no idea if it is a male or female since they look a like. These guys like the area around Wakoda since there is plenty of water in which can be found the fish they like to dive for.

The second image is of an adult on the nest. Look to the bottom right and you can spy a young juvenile in the nest. There are usually only a few chicks in any one nest. In another month or so, the chick will fly the coop. The adults spread their wings out to dry the feathers (and they look like anhingas doing the same thing). Click on the image to get a larger version.

Taken with the Canon 300L IS f/4 + Canon 1.4x teleconverter.