A scene that includes the “Long White Bridge” at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is hard to pass up no matter how many times I’ve taken it.
Neither of these shots, taken about eight weeks apart, have much for colorful flowers and there isn’t a bird in sight but the reflections of the old trees in the still water intrigue me.
Click on the images for a larger view.
Tucked into the roots of a Cypress Tree this new born fawn was hunkered down, surrounded by water.
I’m not sure how he got there; it would have been interesting to watch and know what was on the mother’s mind.
A few hundred feet away was a watchful pair of eyes and listening ears. This one seemed way to small to be the mother, perhaps it was an older cousin.
We visited Beidler Forest last week with out of town guests. We were all delighted to see a Barred Owl shortly after leaving the visitor center and quite close to the board walk. The owl impressed the guests with a head swiveling demo but opted not to go fishing while we were watching.
A Great Egret was flying up the Ashley River, about 90 minutes before high tide.
The water just perceptibly flowing downstream; you might think it was a pond if you just saw this scene and had no other context.
The Egret went slowly on by, gracefully headed to an unknown destination upstream.
The Ashley is tidal most of the way to its origins in the swamps of western Berkeley County.
We are starting to see some spiders and big webs as we walk around the swamps. This web was several feet across with the fine gauge threads glistening in the sun.
I changed position but couldn’t closer due an abundance of poison ivy, something else that is thriving this spring.
My next image was just a few seconds later but focused on a slightly different spot which resulted in a different glisten on the web and background.
I recently posted that it took me almost three years to get a decent image of a Carolina Wren. Two days later another opportunity presented itself, complete with a snack!
The oldest Wood Duck chicks on the pond right now are almost indistinguishable from their mothers.
This old alligator platform gets smaller every week, either sinking or rotting into the pond. This small family squeezes together on it to groom and soak up the afternoon sun.
From the end of the pond you get a view of the platform with the sun glaring off the duckweed. In silhouette you can see mother duck standing a little taller and with more head feathers than her four youngsters. She had turned just a bit to see which way I was headed.
When I first spotted this bird he was looking a bit disheveled and I wasn’t sure if it was a female Red-winged Blackbird, which are rather drab, or a juvenile.
He changed positions on this twig several times working to keep his balance. I’m leaning toward juvenile especially after seeing a hint of red on one shoulder.
Finally, he got it all together for a dignified look.
This dead tree serves as a perch for numerous birds hanging around the rookery. It hangs over the water at the edge of one of the bigger islands giving the big birds a place to contemplate their next move.
As part of the Yellow-billed Kite flying demonstration the handler tosses pieces of raw meat into the air to simulate a bug and the Kite catches them on the fly. I didn’t get a decent picture of that action, but in the sequence below the bird missed and immediately dropped to the ground to find the food.
The demonstration field was covered in little yellow flowers, a pretty background for this brown bird.
He sauntered around a bit for taking to the sky again.
Yellow-billed Kite, Milvus aegyptius
Ted, TPJ Photo, captured some nice images of the mid-air feeding and the Kite taking food from the handler on the fly.
The Center for Birds of Prey offers photographers an opportunity to take close-up photographs of owls and other birds of prey a few times a year.
The Center for Birds of Prey, Photography Day, April 22, 2018, Awenda, SC.
