Stick it to you
The April Showers are indeed bringing the May flowers. The Editors Agapanthus are starting to sprout up and will be blooming soon. Hope all the snow up north has finally gone too!. Old man winter really stuck it to some of you.
On one of my recent sojourns I hooked up with my friend Ron who does boat tours for birding clients. We went to the T M Godwin Wildlife Management Area also known locally as the “Stick Marsh”. A public boat ramp leads to some prime bass fishing and duck hunting areas. The reason they call it the “Stick Marsh” is because of the bird rookery there. Marsh birds by the dozens can be seen flying from some small islands to the surrounding trees and marsh to gather sticks to build their nests. Like clockwork, they fly from the nest, find a stick and bring it back to the island and start to do what birds were born to do. Make more birds. To do that they need to build fine looking nests with all those sticks. We saw Spoonbills, Tricolored Herons, Little Green Herons, Great Blue and Little Blue Herons, Great and Snowy Egrets and Cattle Egrets to name just a few. Although there are occasional territorial squabbles, they all seem to get along. Wish us humans could do the same.
Hope you don’t mind if I just “stick it to you” today and let the images do the talking. Each stick brings the hope of a foundation for a new generation. Then the real work begins...feeding them hungry beaks. Blessings.
T M Godwin "Stick Marsh" areal view showing two Islands used for the rookery..Near Felsmere Florida
Brining in sticks from sunup to sundown ....Roseate Spoonbill
When not bringing sticks they are getting food..Breeding colors on Roseate Spoonbil
Nearly every branch is taken, landings are tricky..Cattle Egret coming in..
Landing...nailed it
Harder to do with a stick in your beak...
Tricolored Heron with nesting material
Here comes another stick
And another one...opps, forgot the stick...
Great Blue Heron with a not so great big stick...every little bit helps though
Well Moms...how would you like to feed the kids like this? ...Spoonie-fed.
Hey, don't swallow Mom...we want some too!. Great Egret chicks getting fed the hard way..