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Juvenile 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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This 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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These 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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What 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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This 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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This adult bald eagle flew into a tree and we were so excited as it had been months since we’ve seen one. Upon focusing in, we saw that it is missing it’s lower beak / mandible / jaw. We then noticed extremely black feet which is not good because raptors need healthy talons and feet…

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This mama raccoon and opossum are eating together peacefully before her 3 raccoon kits come up sniffing around the possum. Mama raccoon is cool as a cucumber and knows that the possum is enjoying some nuts left in the pecan shells that they are sharing. This is next to a waterbowl, there are pecans shells…

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Some people think that if a raccoon is out in the daylight that they are sick with distemper or rabies. And that may be the occasional case. But the majority of the cases are that the raccoons are hungry if they are seen in the day. There’s a couple reasons: 1) Summer has longer days…