Florida Lion

I really can't resist photographing these magnificent Reddish Egrets, and so it's not really a surprise that, out of over 500 photos taken this morning at Fort DeSoto, I picked Big Red for my Blip.  This handsome fellow is almost always somewhere at the north end of "the Fort" and has been dubbed "Big Red" by his legion of camera-toting fans.  I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of photos Big Red has posed for in his years?  At the moment, he's in breeding feathers - so his main is bigger and fluffier than usual and his long tail feathers drag in the water as he dances and wades in pursuit of fish.  

Standing right next to me this morning, in the dense fog, shutter clicking away at speeds that would have shocked you, was none other than Blip's own MichiganMan, Tim! Yep, we met up at the Fort foggy and early and spent four amazingly fun hours stalking various birds.  The fog was so thick that we had to tie a rope to our waists so as not to get lost.  (Okay, I'm just making stuff up now - some of Tim's story-tellin' may have rubbed off on me.)  

Aside from Big Red, the other notable highlights were seeing over 50 Red Knots (one of our longest-range migrant shorebirds), and the young Great Horned owlet ... and the oystercatchers, herson, egrets, pelicans...oh, who am I kidding?  It was all great.  

I have been hunched over my computer trying to lighten and brighten the best of my shots - shooting in heavy fog isn't ideal, let me tell you.  I've managed to  get 12 shots that I like very much and posted them on Flickr, starting here with my second favorite shot of the day.  Actually, I was going back and forth on weather to blip that one or this one...

Three more days till Hubs gets back from AL...

TTFN, people.

Debbi

PS:  And since I know you're dying to ask ...the small shorebird in the foreground is a Dunlin.