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Posted by Paul-the-other on 07:35:08 12/28/06
In Reply to: Everglades Park: Trip report #1 posted by Paul-the-other
BINGO! We struck paydirt, or what passes for paydirt when you are lugging heavy photo equipment around. Mrazek pond was extremely active. Roseattes glided in to join a bevy of snowy egret beauties, several great blues, a small collection of cormorants, tri-s and little blues rounded out the audience. The snowy egrets were all engaged in their ballets of toe skipping across the water stirring up fish. As many as 5-10 at a time would be on the water. Ballet is about all you could say to best describe this event. Flapping feathers, yellow feet, and some nuptial plummage flairing out as they the dance of fish-death played out. Too soon the "big guys" wood storks dropped in. Guess they figured that if there was this much clowning around there must a crawfish or snail or two in the melee. The storks gleaned for food the old fashioned way. They plowed through the water probing the mud bottom with their beaks at a pace that left the auto-focus on the cameras about a nanno second behind.
This was a show to watch but regrettably not to photograph as the overcast burned off in the rising sun and the light was atrocious. Those that have been to Mrazek Pond know what shooting east into a rising sun means. But then, we consoled outrselves with talk that "seeing" it was what we were alloted by the God of Nature.
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