Egrets and Spoonbills

MT Stringer

Here are a few pics shot last month at the Rookery at High Island, Tx. Seven months ago, Hurricane Ike damaged (or destroyed) a lot of trees in the area but the birds are still making their nests.

Great Egret w/ 2 chicks in the nest.


Three Egret chicks in the nest (they are growing fast)


Rosette Spoonbills with three babies in the nest.


Snowy Egret with eggs in the nest

Bud1880

Very nice Mike.

Love the fuzz on the egret chicks.

Bud

Netgarden

Ohhhh beautiful work on the nests. What a great day you must have had!
I have yet to do an Egret nest, and hunted for a spoonbill reported in my area of OC, Calif. for a few weeks, to no avail! I'm envious!

MT Stringer

Netgarden wrote:

Ohhhh beautiful work on the nests. What a great day you must have had!
I have yet to do an Egret nest, and hunted for a spoonbill reported in my area of OC, Calif. for a few weeks, to no avail! I'm envious!

Thanks.
The birds return to this place every year. Hurricane Ike destroyed a lot of the trees in this area but they are making the best of it. The nesting is actually going on on an island that is in a big pond. It's more like a lake. So the birds are fairly safe from ground critters because the water is 30-40yds across at the narrowest point. There are a few alligators hanging out down below just in case someone loses their footing.

A 400mm lens is minimum with 500 - 1000 better to get up close. Most of my shots are with a Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 and 2x teleconverter. I have also used a Sigma 50-500 with extender to get close.

I have some more pics of the birds from this rookery and a few other places on my Smugmug site here:

Check 'em out if you get time.
Mike

Gale

Very nice images, except some of the whites are blown out