Great Egret, Gatorland Rookery, Orlando FL

Today we will drop back almost a month to my Space Coast Birding Festival trip.

The lovely breeding plumage of the Great Egret came close to killing off the bird. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the lady’s hat trade consumed Egrets by the thousands, and the carnage sparked one of the first spontaneous conservation movements in the US…one that lead directly, if eventually, to the protection of most non-game birds within our borders. So you might say that these lovely plumes did their part to save the birds…all the birds in the US.

There are few places where you can get as close to breeding Egrets as you can at the rookeries at Gatorland and St Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida. These commercial ventures, whether you think them hokey or educational, have, in their own way, helped to save the birds as well. Providing a protected, alligator infested, pool with big trees over and surrounding is simply an invitation to Egrets, Herons, Storks, and Spoonbills to come and nest…and they do. And because there are people there everyday, they get used to the people, and nest withing feet of the boardwalks. This shot is a telephoto macro taken from about 20 feet at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/1600th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.