The Great Blue Herons have all fledged and have mostly left the rookery area. A few later starting Great Egrets chicks are still around, but they have grown to almost adult size and won’t be around much longer.
This pair looks a little goofy as they look around on a hot day.
Some of the Great Egret chicks are showing a lot of interest in the world beyond their nest and they have spread out into the space vacated by the Great Blue Heron chick.
I’m not sure which one of this pair actually took the flight; it was about five minutes after this first image that I noticed that one of them was gone.
The one left behind definitely noticed. “Hey, where’d my brother go?”
Not far as it turns out, on that first hop.
Oooh, that was fun!
Now what do I do?
He eventually made his way to the top of this branch and took off, After circling around the back side of the island he returned to the nest, a real flight!
A Canada Goose family was wandering through the edge of the cypress swamp, with the goslings foraging for food under the watchful eyes of their parents.
It was a cloudy morning and there was a full canopy above us so the images had a very high ISO. I reduced the noise and clarity which gave the youngsters a soft look that I found appealing.
They stayed surprisingly close to the boardwalk even as we approached, but before long the adults steered their charges back into the water.
Click on any image for a larger view.
These three chicks really look like Anhingas now, with the classic black and white “piano key” feathers on their wings.
Like the wading bird chicks in nearby nests these older chicks are spending more time interacting with each other as they wait for the parents to bring food. These three were so busy they didn’t even notice when one of the parents was on its approach.
Just as well, because she kept right on going.
And going.
I don’t know what made her abort her landing, but she circled around the tree for a second try and successful touch down.
A Barred Owl pair with two fledged owlets has been seen regularly from the boardwalk at Beidler Forest. We spotted just this one youngster taking short flights in the limbs above us.
The owlet was curious about the humans passing on the boardwalk below him, not bothered by our presence. A school group of about twenty-five kids and chaperones had just passed and a few of their stragglers stopped with us to watch the chick.
After the adult Anhinga finished feeding the one chick, the unfed chick started to pester his sibling.
He used the same chewing on the beak method all the young use on the parent when they return to the nest.
I couldn’t tell if the second chick got any food from the first one or if this was all show. The adult didn’t stick around to find out.
These two chicks are older than the four from last night’s post, where I described how the adult regurgitates the food. It’s a little weird the second time you see it, too. These chicks were a bigger target for me and I had a much better vantage point to see the feeding action.
Some feathers are starting to grow on the chicks’ necks, making them look more appealing and bird-like.
Anhinga can swallow very large fish, much bigger than their heads. You can see here the flexibility of their jaw.
The adult only fed the one chick then moved out of their reach.
5/10/2018
Anhingas feed their chicks a little differently than the herons and egrets and it’s a little weird the first time you see it: the young stick their beaks down the adult’s throat to get the regurgitated food.
Like the herons, the young Anhinga will pull on the adults beak to start the feeding process. This adult had four young in the nest and the pushiest gets the most food.
Below you can see the featherless necks of the chicks and how the pouch at the corner of their jaw. It appears the one on the left is bleeding from a scratch–small wonder with all those sharp beaks.
I had changed positions trying to get a better view but they all kept dipping down below the branches.
04/20/2018
I heard them way before I got to the swamp: they were squawking the way they do when a parent has brought food. Instead of feeding, the scene when I got there was more like a human telling his sibling what’s what.
You could practically hear “You’re not the boss of me!”
I’m not sure if this was backing down or just requisitioning.
And as is often the case with humans, it was all over a couple minutes later, apparently with no harm done.
A lone adult, perhaps from this nest, stood with a tired look at the edge of the pond. The adults all around the rookery are starting to look like they have had enough.
This single Great Blue Heron chick has gotten a rough start in life and hasn’t seemed to be thriving as well as those in nearby nests. On my most recent pass by his nest he was up doing some wingersizing, which is a hopeful sign.
The adult wasn’t paying him any attention, which isn’t unusual, but without any siblings to interact with he’s got to poke at his parents once in awhile.
This nest is in the same tree as the multiple Great Egret nests. This fellow’s next challenge will be to fend off those chicks and their parents once they notice he is there. Last year the GBH chicks in this nest hatched much earlier than the Great Egret chicks so they had more of a size advantage. And there were two of them.
