Tag: Dock
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Female Anhinga Sunning Dock
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in BirdsFemale Anhinga’s have a pale gray tan neck and breast. Anhinga’s are also called snake birds because they swim through the water with just their necks showing and body fully submerged. Anhingas have sharp serrated pointed beaks. These serrations are like barbs and all sorts of plastics, trash, and lines get caught in them. Be…
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4 Yellow Crowned Night Herons Chillin’
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in BirdsJuvenile yellow crowned night herons are difficult to tell apart from juvenile black crowned night herons. I know these are yellow crowned night herons because we have so many adults on the dock and have never seen a black crowned night heron on the dock. I volunteer with our local avian clinic for shorebirds and…
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Male Osprey vs Live Fish
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in BirdsThis male osprey brings in a huge live fish to eat on the dock. Is this a redfish, my fishing people? My guess is that this is a male osprey because of the lack of a brown necklace or banding around the upper chest. Ospreys are raptors or birds of prey. They have hooked beaks…
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Juvenile Yellow Crowned Night Heron Practices Crabbing
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in BirdsThese juvenile yellow crowned night herons spends a lot of time on our dock and are just now starting to drink fresh water out of our dock water bowl after watching the elder yellow crowned night herons. S/he is also learning how to crab / hunt / forage and picks at a regurgitated pellet (undigested…
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Yellow Crowned Night Heron Horaltic Pose & Gular Fluttering
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in BirdsThis adult yellow crowned night heron is thermoregulating in the horaltic position. This position helps birds cool down in hot weather and/or warm up or dry off in cold weather if the sun is shining. It also helps bake or get any mites moving in the feathers and sometimes they preen a bit after this…
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Turkey Vulture Feaking After Eating
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in BirdsThis turkey vulture ate a dead stingray in the marsh and comes up to the dock to feak. Feaking is the act of a bird cleaning and or honing it’s beak after eating. In Charleston SC, they have to work with the tides to eat. They can’t eat the things they can’t see or get…
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Breeding Plumage Laughing Seagulls & Yellow Crowned Night Heron
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in BirdsThis laughing seagull has his / her breeding colors going. Orange / red bill, darker hooded head, and white crescent shaped incomplete eye rings around the eyes. The laughing gull spits up something, gets kicked off by another laughing gull, and then gets run off by a yellow crowned night heron in it’s breeding plumage.…
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Osprey Eats Fish On Dock
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in BirdsThis male osprey caught a small fish and brought it to our dock to eat. It took about 16 minutes from start to finish. The osprey feaks (cleans, hones it’s beak), shakes, poops and takes off, pretty classic bird behavior. Ospreys are raptors with hooked beaks and talons. They generally dive feet first into water…
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Thirsty Yellow Crowned Night Heron Drinking
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in BirdsYellow crowned night herons have returned to Charleston for the season. They’re one of my favorite birds so I’m pretty happy to see them again. Yellow crowned night herons are always thirsty and they were the inspiration for this waterbowl on the dock after seeing them try to drink out of the sink that is…