Beautiful Snowy Egret with bright yellow feet, uses them to help stir up fish while hunting. Unlike most herons that patiently sit and wait to strike a fish, the Snowy Egret is on the move - stirring up the bottom and exciting fish with those big yellow feet and covering a lot of ground to stalk fish. Snowy Egrets are one of my favorite birds with their striking pure white plumage and sexy yellow feet they always make my day! If you've never seen on on the move you are in for a treat!
A juvenile Yellow-Crowned Night Heron and juvenile White Ibis have bonded and become good buddies. I followed these two young birds at a distance for quite awhile on a trail before it occurred to me what was going on and take a video. I got a little too close in the beginning and you can sense I'm cramping their style - I stayed back and they continued on their morning stroll together looking for tasty bugs to dig out of the ground.
Close up quality time with a beautiful Northern Cardinal couple in the dense jungle behind the Backyard. A very unusual and relaxing backdrop for watching Cardinals! There are usually one pair of Cardinals that call the Backyard area home, but they are very low profile and hide in the deep brush - making quick darts to the feeder. I can never get to spend any time with them as they are dominated by the Jays, Grackles Woodpeckers and squirrels around the feeders. So I took the food to them into the jungle and succeeded in getting them to enjoy a private dinner until a surprise crass visitor totally destroys the party at the end. Your in for a treat!
Crows calling at Bald Eagle to force it off its high perch and out of its territory in Florida. The crows bet that annoying calls and courage will trump size and power. Who will win this battle of nerves?
The Snowy Egret is a species of special concern in Florida and relatively rare to get close to in the wild. It is my favorite wading bird with its friendly expression exotic plumage and cute yellow feet. This one still has a lot of yellow on its legs which probably means it is fairly young.
Physical Description
The snowy egret is a small and active wading bird that can reach a height of 26 inches (66 centimeters) with a 39 inch (100 centimeters) wingspan (Parsons and Master 2000). This species has a full white body, black legs, bright yellow feet, yellow marks around the eyes, and a black bill.
Life History
The diet of the snowy egret primarily consists of shrimp, small fish, and small invertebrates. It feeds in fresh and salt water habitats within flocks of other wading birds.
The snowy egret begins breeding around late March to early April. This species nests with other wading birds in swamps and mangroves on islands. During courtship, the male will point his bill upwards and begin moving his body up and down as he tries to impress the female . They will nest no higher than 30 feet (9.1 meters) above the ground on a stage of sticks in trees and bushes. Females will lay three to five eggs, and they will hatch after 23-26 days of incubation. During incubation, both parents will incubate the eggs . To feed young, the parents will partially digest food and regurgitate it to the nestlings. The young are able to fly 25 days after hatching; however, they do not leave the nest until a couple months after first flight.
Habitat and Distribution
Snowy Egret Distribution
Snowy egrets commonly prefer shallow estuarine areas including mangroves, shallow bays, saltmarsh pools, and tidal channels. This species can be found in the U.S. from northern California, east to South Dakota, and south to Florida where they are widespread year-round residents. Snowy egrets are also found in Chile, Argentina, and the Greater Antilles. This species is found throughout Florida.
Threats:
Historically, the snowy egret was overhunted for their plumage (feathers) which were often used for women’s clothing and hats. Today’s threats to the species are not well understood, but coastal development, recreational disturbance at foraging and breeding sites, habitat degradation, human disturbance, and increased pressure from predators are primary concerns. Similar to other wading birds that depend on fragile estuaries and wetlands for foraging and breeding, snowy egrets are at risk of exposure to persistent contaminants such as heavy metals (ex. mercury) and pesticides . Snowy egrets compete for nesting sites with growing numbers of cattle egrets, which can be aggressively territorial at colony sites, but the relationship to productivity is not well understood . Other potential threats to snowy egret populations are alterations to the hydrology of foraging areas, and oil spill impacts to critical breeding, foraging, and roosting sites.
Conservation and Management
The snowy egret is protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act and as a State Species of Special Concern by Florida’s Endangered and Threatened Species Rule External Website.
Eastern Phoebe - a small flycatcher - shows its talent for subduing and eating flying insects - pretty big prey for such a small bird.
The eastern phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) is a small passerine bird. This tyrant flycatcher breeds in eastern North America, although its normal range does not include the southeastern coastal United States.
It is migratory, wintering in the southernmost United States and Central America. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. This is one of the first birds to return to the breeding grounds in spring and one of the last to leave in the fall. They arrive for breeding in mid-late March, but they return to winter quarters around the same time when other migrant songbirds do, in September and early October; migration times have stayed the same in the last 100 years. The increase in trees throughout the Great Plains during the past century due to fire suppression and tree planting facilitated a western range expansion of the eastern phoebe as well as range expansions of many other species of birds.
This species appears remarkably big-headed, especially if it puffs up the small crest. Its plumage is gray-brown above. It has a white throat, dirty gray breast and buffish underparts which become whiter during the breeding season. Two indistinct buff bars are present on each wing. Its lack of an eye ring and wingbars, and its all dark bill distinguish it from other North American tyrant flycatchers, and it pumps its tail up and down like other phoebes when perching on a branch. The eastern phoebe's call is a sharp chip, and the song, from which it gets its name, is fee-bee.
The eastern wood pewee (Contopus virens) is extremely similar in appearance. It lacks the buff hue usually present on the lighter parts of the eastern phoebe's plumage, and thus has always clearly defined and contrasting wing-bars. It also does not bob its tail habitually, and appears on the breeding grounds much later though it leaves for winter quarters at about the same time as the eastern phoebe.
The breeding habitat of the eastern phoebe is open woodland, farmland and suburbs, often near water. This phoebe is insectivorous, and often perches conspicuously when seeking food items. It also eats fruits and berries in cooler weather.
It often nests on human structures such as bridges and buildings. Nesting activity may start as early as the first days of April. The nest is an open cup with a mud base and lined with moss and grass, built in crevice in a rock or man-made site; two to six eggs are laid. Both parents feed the young and usually raise two broods per year. The eastern phoebe is occasionally host to the nest-parasitic brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater).
"Easy Day" by Kevin Macleod from the YouTube music library/
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Male Red Bellied Woodpecker joins the Blue Jay Family in the fight for morning peanuts. Presented in real-time it takes about 50 seconds from the time I open the door until the peanuts are gone! Listen for the blue jays imitating a Red Shouldered Hawk call as intimidation to keep squirrels and other birds away while the Jay strike force hits the peanuts.
Critically endangered Red Wolves only exist in the wild in a small part of North Carolina. Perhaps less than 50 exist in the wild and they are on the brink of extinction.
BASIC FACTS ABOUT RED WOLVES
http://www.defenders.org/
The red wolf is a smaller and a more slender cousin of the gray wolf. It is gray-black, with a reddish cast that gives it the color for which it is named.
Diet
The red wolf’s diet consists primarily of small mammals such as rabbits and rodents. Also known to eat insects, berries and occasionally deer.
Population
Almost hunted to the brink of extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rounded up fewer than 20 pure red wolves to be bred in captivity in 1980. As of 2007, approximately 207 captive red wolves reside at 38 captive breeding facilities across the United States. Thanks to these programs, more than 50 red wolves currently live in the wild.
Range
Historically, red wolves ranged throughout the southeastern U.S. from Pennsylvania to Florida and as far west as Texas. Today, wild populations roam more than 1.7 million acres throughout northeastern North Carolina, including Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.
Red wolves are primarily nocturnal (active at night), and communicate by scent marking, vocalizations (including howling), facial expressions and body postures.
Shy and secretive, red wolves hunt alone or in small packs -- complex social structures that include the breeding adult pair (the alpha male and female) and their offspring. Red wolves tend to form pair-bonds for life.
Size of the pack varies with the size of available prey populations. A hierarchy of dominant and subordinate animals within the pack helps it to function as a unit. Dens are often located in hollow trees, stream banks and sand knolls.
Groundhog's Day February 2nd - a time to appreciate the giant member of the squirrel family also known as a Woodchuck. Here is an extreme closeup of these adept tree climbers with voracious appetites. Note the extremely large long claws for digging burrows and the large Beaver-like teeth. They spend a lot of time digging and eating and are quite cute in their own way.
