At the Venice Rookery…

Procrastination is one of my best talents. It was when I was a kid, and it’s still with me all these years later. As a matter of fact I have two phone calls I need to make, and I ought to be packing for a trip I have coming up. But at this moment I’m lamenting the trip to the Venice Rookery that I’ve been talking about taking for weeks but only got around to going there yesterday. The Great Blue Heron babies bobbing their heads weren’t there, as I’d promised my friend, though the great egrets and anhingas were raising a ruckus. A little mockingbird flew by and landed on a fence, giving me a nice feature photo. But I confess that I was disappointed when another photographer told me that the great blue babies had fledged the nests. But we began to take pictures of the birds that were there.

These anhingas were keeping busy high up on this snag.

Although you might think these are grown up great egrets, they are still babies who looked as if they were going to take off flying any second.

These two anhinga ‘kids’ looked like they might tie their necks in a knot as they bobbed and weaved. Their neck pouches were fluttering the whole time, I’m told that’s how they keep cool. The day was hot, but breezy, so we were comfortable as we ate our picnic lunch in the shade.

This great egret wading on the nearby shore caught my eye, and it soon became evident that he caught himself a nice fish for lunch.

As I walked to the car to get our lunch I noticed a great blue heron flying towards the rookery. She landed on the very top of the shrubbery, and, much to our surprise, up popped two ‘babies’ who were very happy to see her. We hadn’t been aware of them at all, and if we had been I probably would have thought they were adults, they were that big.

Mom must have brought back a fish for her babies.

It looked to me as if this baby is going to down the fish in one gulp. Mom will have to go fishing again if his sibling is going to eat.

I guess we need to fluff up a bit after that excitement.

I liked the depth of field in this photo.

Someone looks like he wants to go with Mom.

Soon it was time to go. What started out a bit disappointing had turned out to be a fun day. Mother Nature is like that.

Thank you to joannie6535 for reminding me of where I actually was yesterday.

4 thoughts on “At the Venice Rookery…”

Venice?

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naturecoastimagesblog says:

May 7, 2022 at 10:52 am

Duh! I wrote Venice and then told myself I was wrong, but then I was having a beer while I wrote that!

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1. joannie6535 says:
  
  May 7, 2022 at 11:19 am
  
  I’ve done that too. More often than I like to admit. But, I was reading along thinking I’d have to find that Vienna Rookery next time I went to Florida….when I recognized the background in the photos. Love the place. Did you stay for the bats?
  
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2. naturecoastimagesblog says:
  
  May 7, 2022 at 11:21 am
  
  Bats? What bats? And no, it was hot plus an over 2 hour drive home, so again, no. I vaguely remember a late night bat photo op where I got no photos. I think that cured me.
  
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