Tag: shorebirds
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Tricolored Heron Preening & Scratching
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in BirdsThis tricolored heron enjoyed a sunny day preening and scratching on the dock. Adult, nonbreeding tricolored heron. 45 second itchy scratchy from 1:28 on. Charleston SC Sept 2025
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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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Juvenile Little Blue Heron Eating Lizards
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in BirdsWe’re having king tides (high tides) in Charleston, SC in Oct 2025 and it forces this juvenile little blue heron to look for food in the yard. Our yard is mostly native plants and we don’t use herbicide or pesticide so there is a lot of good bugs and amphibians. Juvenile little blue herons are…
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Yellow Crowned Night Heron Swaying & Hunting Crabs
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in BirdsAdult yellow crowned night heron hunting fiddler crabs in the marsh in Charleston SC. August 7, 2025. Yellow crowned night herons like some other birds sway like the wind while hunting and honing in on their prey. I imagine this is some way to mimic the environment that it’s in and become a part of…
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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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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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Wood Stork Flock / Muster Marsh Foraging
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in BirdsWhat a beautiful sight of a wood stork flock (also called a wood stork muster) foraging and squirreling around together. I’m guessing that there were over one hundred. Wood storks have bald blackish heads with thick stout beaks that turn downward. They are huge birds with a wingspan of 5 plus feet. They have fingered…
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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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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.…