Been away from the keyboard for a while. Some time has passed since our last Daily Sighting post. Let’s make up for that. Here are two…
Cold-blooded.
Went to the Everglades for birds, alligators and adventure. Our small airboat slid over swamp water and saw-grass, past jungled islands that had Black Vultures in treetops.
Bears and panthers stayed hidden, but we saw Tricolored Herons, Glossy Ibises, Snowy Egrets, a Snail Kite and cold Anhingas. Yeah, cold. The morning was sunny, but temperatures were in the fifties.
We saw an alligator, too, rare on a chilly day. But, this ten-footer was cold-blooded about being cold.
We stopped. He glided nearby, looking unlike anything in a zoo, unless it was Jurassic Park.
A Purple Gallinule walked chicken-like on floating vegetation. He knows that gators are underfoot, but this bird’s cold-blooded about danger.
Hell, on that day, even wrapped up under hats, coats and scarves in the tropical Everglades, we were all cold-blooded.
Bird Shadows.
And then it got warm. While on a sunny beach, shadows zipped and rippled across the sand and over the Atlantic surf.
One of these might’ve been made by a Ring-billed Gull, Brown Pelican, Collared Dove. Even an Osprey.
I aimed my cell-phone camera at a bird shadow, and captured most of it just in time. Didn’t get to see the bird itself, but could make a good guess about what it was.
Then an idea hit: Bird shadow-watching.
Experts already spice up birding by going naked, which means no binoculars.
Some south Florida beach lovers have a different definition, but that’s a story for another day.
And some birders identify species only by listening.
How about a new challenge? Shadow birding. Here’s that bird shadow I snapped before it flew out of sight. Know what made it?