Roseate Spoonbills, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, St A. Florida

In late April and early May each year I have two events. The Florida Birding and Photo Fest and the Biggest Week in American Birding at Magee Marsh and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in Ohio. Essentially I go direct from one to the other and have about 15 days of excellent bird photography…mostly nesting waders in Florida, and migrating warblers and songbirds in Ohio. I also come back from the two trips with well over 1000 images…keepers that is…I probably take close to 4000 frames. I share a few images from the events, while I am there, but clearly I have a lot more that I have not shared. All of which is to explain why, after several weeks, we are back to a Florida image for today’s post, though I have been back in Maine for several days now. 🙂

These two Roseate Spoonbills at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm wild bird rookery spent most of a day attempting to build a nest in this low Mangrove…an odd place to begin with. They abandoned the attempt overnight, but while they were active, I had a chance to observe courtship and nest building activity up close. Here the male is passing a bit of viney twig to the female.

Nikon P900 at 400mm equivalent field of view (I told you they were close). 1/125th @ ISO 125 @ f5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.