I had today off and despite the dreary morning, Lynda and I headed over
the Shirley Plantation this morning. It was dark and cloudy and hard to
get pictures when we arrived. We saw a few blue-winged teals and
osprey, but the weather wasn't co-operating. We drove back out and sat
to watch for the muskrat or otter near the entrance. The sun came out
so we decided to try again to get some decent pics of the blue-winged
teals.
We had gotten quite a few and decided to head home. As we started to
pull away something caught our eye...it was a female wood duck with five
babies. They were so tiny and so cute.
We took some pictures and she moved into thick brush, so once again we
started for home. I saw something move near the edge of the water and I
pointed...Lynda exclaims, 'Oh my gosh, it's a bittern'. We then stayed
there for over an hour watching and taking pictures of it. It is such a
beautiful bird. He was in some deep brush and we had troubles trying to
find clear shots, but we were happy with the chance. I had heard
something in the brush on the other side of the road and had gone over
to investigate when the bittern decided to move so I missed some good
pic opportunities. Lynda got some of him walking through the water into
this group of bushes. It was amazing to watch him 'disappear'. I swear
we looked for 20 minutes and never could find him in there.
While we were there today we also saw an otter, bald eagles, several
different hawks, great blue herons, red-winged black birds, towhees,
tons of canada geese, and several muskrats.
My pics from today are at:
http://public.fotki.com/bhouston/miscellaneous/nature_pics/20090410-shirley-pl/
I had stopped by there earlier in the week and got a couple decent
pictures of an immature bald eagle and a wood duck:
http://public.fotki.com/bhouston/miscellaneous/nature_pics/20090407-shirley/
Lynda will post her pictures shortly.
Barbara and Lynda
New Kent County
