A Surprise Rookery!

I spend a fair amount of time driving on Hwy 90 east of Monticello, Florida, which is near my home. At some point last year I noticed that there was this one patch of trees alongside the road that always held a lot of egrets. I noticed recently that there were even more this year....in fact, hundreds. They appeared to be mostly cattle egrets.

This afternoon I was driving by again and, since I had my little point-and-shoot camera in the car, I stopped to take a photo or two of them. Apparently they are used to cars whizzing by but not people walking along the roadside; several flew from their perches. I discovered that there were not only nests in the trees, but a few seemed to have baby egrets in them!

It's difficult to get a good photo of an egret with a point-and-shoot camera, particularly in the sunshine. They usually come out overexposed due to the white feathers. So I got back in the car and drove home, got the big camera, and went back.

There was a lot of greenery between me and the birds, and the nests were obscured by branches, but I was able to get a few photos.



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These three were perched on top of a tree, perhaps on guard duty.



Now that I know that this is an actual rookery, I will keep an eye on it next spring, when there might be more young ones in the nests.

Meanwhile, I'm off to NC soon. Stand by.
- posted by Peggy @ 5:57 PM