Wakodahatchee Wildlife

This post is a wrap-up of our walks at Wakodahatchee Wetlands earlier this month and it's very picture heavy, because I just couldn't put my camera down.  There was so much  that I want to remember.

 

 

Wakodahatchee Wetlands is located at Delray Beach near Fort Lauderdale.  We had no idea on this beautiful blue sky day that this area would experience three days of heavy rain and severe flooding starting the day after we were there.  

 

 Florida Wood Storks — adult and a nest full of young ones.

I can't find any information about whether the floods affected this wetlands.  I hope all the families who live there are still OK.  I suspect the birds knew how to manage.

 

Great Egret on a nest

We tried to decide if there was a baby in that Egret's nest or if that was just a stray feather.  Hoped a closer look at the pictures would show more, but still not sure.

We spent a longer time watching the birds in the series below, trying to decide what they were and what exactly they were doing.  

 

Any guesses?  (I do know the answer now, but it took us a while.)

They were very noisy and very engaged with each other.  At first we weren't even sure what kind of birds they were, but then a large black bird swooped into the picture and cleared things up.  Apparently these two were just a couple of hungry teenagers killing time waiting for dinner to arrive.  We recognized the adult  Anhinga immediately as we see them often here in Florida.    Dad flew right to the young ones and opened his beak wide:

 

 

He wasn't  much larger than his two nearly grown and very hungry offspring.   I didn't know this while we watched this behavior but read later that the parents feed new babies by dropping regurgitated food into their mouths.  It doesn't take long for the babies to learn where the food comes from and by the time they are as big as these two birds, they just reach right down  into the parent bird's mouth for the food.  That's what's going on in the picture above.   (I love learning first hand about bird behavior.  But maybe I should have added a "slightly gross" warning about the above photo for those of you learning it second hand.)  

 

 

Later, we saw a different adult with younger babies.  (This one's a female because she has a brown head and neck.)  Mom looks less frazzled than the dad in the other picture.  And the babies are cuter at this stage.  Although it doesn't demonstrate as much about their behavior,  it's probably a more suitable family portrait for sharing.  

 

Common Gallinule

We watched a whole family of these birds, also known as Moorhens, but they were hard to photograph in the vegetation where they like to forage.

 

 

Stork Spa!  Their wings are much cleaner and the black and white contrast is more noticeable than when they're in their nest.   (Click on the photo to admire their pretty feathers.)  

 The photo below is from a different place and a different time (but still from Florida).  I just wanted to end with a sunset.

 

Grateful for all we see and all we learn.

 

LINKING this week to the following:  Thank you to the hosts.

SATURDAY CRITTERS ;  RATHER B' BIRDING; NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; WILD BIRD Wednesday;  THANKFUL THURSDAY;  and SKYWATCH FRIDAY