Great Egret: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, January 2024 — With Snowy Egrets it is all about dancing on water. With Great Egrets it is all about the spread wings. Or at least it was on this day at Merritt Island. And I had lots to choose from. OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at from 246 to 420mm equivalents. Program mode with my birds in flight and action modifications. -0.3EV Processed in Photomator.

Great Egrets: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, USA, January 2024 — After spending fifteen minutes with the dancing Snowy Egrets, busy feeding on the shrimp hatch, I switched my attention to the Great Egrets sharing the same pool, and presumably the same bounty. Great Egrets behavior is different though. While Snowys feed in a dancing frenzy, paying little attention to each other except to avoid collisions, each Great Egret seems to feel the need to dominate the pool. Greats seem to spend most of their energy facing off with other Greats. In the process, very little actual feeding seems to get done. ?? It must somehow work for them. OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 246mm equivalent. (I had to zoom out for the considerably larger birds.) Program mode with my custom birds-in-flight and action modifications. -0.3EV. Processed in Photomator.

Roseate Spoonbill: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, January 2024 — After enough time trying for water-dancing Snowy Egrets, I turned my attention to the few Roseate Spoonbills who were in the same pool behind the entrance sign at Blackpoint. Always a great bird, in January the Spoonbills at Merritt Island are just coming into breeding plumage. This male was busy doing its spoony thing, harvesting shrimp much more efficiently than the Snowy Egrets, but without the spectacular show. OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 400mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Photomator and assembled in FrameMagic.

Bonaparte’s Gull: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, USA, January 2024 — The Bonaparte’s Gulls that feed with the Egrets on those days when the shrimp hatch do not do the whole “dancing on the water” thing, but the Egrets dancing keeps them stirred up and active. They never get to sit still for long. OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 300mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds-in-flight and action modifications. Processed in Photomator and assembled in FrameMagic.

Snowy Egret: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, USA, January 2024 — More Egrets dancing on the water (I told you I got lots of shots!). The grace and beauty of these birds is undeniable. Who can resist? OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 300mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds-in-flight and action modifications. -1.0EV. Processed in Photomator.

Snowy Egrets: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, January 2024 — While I have, as I mentioned when I first posted images from this encounter with the water dancing Egrets along Blackpoint drive, seen this behavior before many times, I never saw it so concentrated or so intense or involving so many birds at once as I did this January. The action was non-stop and I often did not know where to look, there were so many Egrets in the air at the same time. Close calls and cut-offs were inevitable. OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 300mm equivalent. Program mode with my birds-in-flight and action modifications. -1.0EV. Processed in Photomator.

Snowy Egret: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, USA, January 2024 — After my workshop day in Cocoa Beach at the Space Coast Birding and Nature Festival, I arrived early at Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, to find the Egrets and Spoonbills feeding avidly in the ponds right behind the entrance sign. Parking is awkward there, but in just 20 minutes I got more photos of Egrets dancing on the water than I had ever hoped to get. Part of it was the OM System OM-1 with its bird detecting, eye-tracking auto focus, and part of it was that I have never seen so much concentrated action in such a small pool. This sequence shows how effective the whole dance-on-the-water thing is for Snowy Egrets…though I still suspect they have more misses than hits. It is certainly fascinating to watch, and I have enough photos from this one stop to share for the next week or more. 🙂 OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 300mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds-in-flight and action modifications. -1.0EV, 1/1600th second. Processed in Photomator.

Little Blue Heron: Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, USA, January 2024 — This is a particularly “reddish” looking Little Blue, and if not for the beak color might be mistaken for a Reddish Egret. While both Reddish and Little Blue are fearsome hunters, both miss more often than they hit…swing and a miss for a strike…and are left looking at the expanding ripples. OM System OM-1 with 100-400IS zoom at 200mm equivalent (this bird was close!). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator.