Cotton Balls on Stilts…by Brad Marks

Greetings everyone! Linda and finally made it back from Rochester, MN. We were up there for Linda’s annual heart checkup and I am pleased to report everything looks excellent. Linda has a bit of PTSD on these visits from all that has been through up there, but she pulled through like a champ. We even celebrated by going to our favorite restaurant, Canadian Honker – DELICIOUS. Think I have mentioned this before, but there are two things that always strike me about the Mayo campus. First is the perfect entropy that plays out in their waiting room. It happens in every medical waiting room since Covid, it’s just on a larger scale there. By entropy, I am referring to the fact patients will always pick the set of chairs that maximizes their distance from anyone else. I enjoy watching the visible thought process as the options narrow ha. The other intriguing element is everyone walking around with cotton balls on their arms. Pretty sure 95% of the patients with visits that day have to start out with a phlebotomist. Just thinking about all those pokes makes me want to faint. Luckily Brad is back with a much happier story about fluffy balls to help put my mind at ease.

Take it away Brad…

Have you ever been digging through some stuff piled on your desk or the kitchen counter and found something you thought you already took care of?  Well, that’s this story. I started writing just after Jan and I were in South Carolina this past February.  We were (OK, I was) overwhelmed with the embarrassment of riches of birds to photograph and write about.  I think I mentioned in an earlier story that we took well north of 11,000 photos over the course of three days.  Our primary reason for being in the area was not birding or photography.  We had really been trying to leave snowy February in Illinois behind for a week.  We also wanted to visit a State Park or two to be out in Nature without a parka.  It just so happened that the birding was rather spectacular, “forcing” us to fill up memory cards along the way.  I guess that’s what two backup SSD drives are for.

At first, I treated every white wading bird the same as I was trying to identify them.  I learned that some white wading birds are supposed to be blue, not white.  I also learned that all of the medium-sized white wading birds aren’t all the same bird.  I guess you need to pay attention to their feet, legs, and bills to know for sure.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to learn more about the “fluffy factor”!

As I’ve mentioned in a prior story, a Little Blue Heron (read about the Blue Imposter here) at first glance, looks very much like a Snowy Egret (Egretta thula), today’s featured feathered friend. 

Thankfully these two posed for a comparison photo.  While not quite a “cotton ball” in appearance, Snowy Egrets are noticeably “fluffier” than the Little Blue Heron.  The heron and egret are very close in size.  Both are approx. 26-27” in length (the Little Blue has a slight 1-2” advantage) and nearly identical wingspans of 39-41”.  Then I noticed the fluffiness of the Snowy Egret.  And the bright yellow feet on the Snowy, whereas the Little Blue has greenish legs and feet.  Bill color is also distinctive:  black and yellow for the Snowy, blue/grey for the Little Blue.  Both weigh about 13-14 ounces fully grown.  You can see my initial identification dilemma.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

We spent the day at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina.  When we arrived early in the morning, it was just past high tide.  By mid-afternoon, we were nearing low tide.  Even though these Snowys were in South Carolina, they can be found year-round in South America and Mexico and really anywhere along the southern Atlantic or Pacific coastline of the US.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

You might even find them in the Midwest during the migration or breeding season.  Based on their habitat range maps, they don’t seem to like cold or mountainous regions.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

That was one of few times we saw more than one Snowy Egret at a time. You can see the tell-tale bright yellow feet and a bit of the “snowy” feathers. They sort of reminded me of bags of cotton candy at a carnival, except for the “legs being sticks” part. From this photo it sort of looks like they are waiting for close-ups. It’s not the camera focus; it’s the feathers. OK, there may be a little depth-of-field focus going on, but it couldn’t be helped.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

Luckily, two characteristic bits are visible in this photo to help with identification.  First, I can see the yellow feet just below the surface.  And second, the bright yellow on the bill closest to its head.  The bonus identifier is the white fluff on the end of their tail, like their larger cousin the Great Egret.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

And much like a Great Egret, the landing process looks rather awkward while it’s happening.  First, they hold their wings relatively still while their wingtip feathers seem to spread out.  Then their legs are lowered, almost limp.  When they are closer to the water, the legs “reach” forward and the wings begin to flapping to scrub airspeed.  I won’t say the actual landing is a crash per se, but it doesn’t always look graceful.  After a bit of kerfuffle and maybe a splash or three, the bird settles into the water, wings held high and dry.  Then the egrets begin the delicate process of folding their large wings and you get the sense they are thinking “nailed the landing.” At least that’s what it looks like from the outside.

Once “on the ground” and standing in water, this one took a bow.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

No, it’s not admiring itself for a successful landing.  The Snowy is most likely attempting canopy fishing.  That’s where wading birds will spread their wings (or make a complete circle like an umbrella) to create a small shadow in the water.  Shadows draw in small aquatic creatures which the Snowys can grab for a quick snack.  This can save them from having to work very hard, like having to wade all over the shallows.

Since there is no in-flight food service, the Snowy gets straight to work.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

Sometimes the early wading bird gets the worm.  In this case, that is quite literally what happened.  Other times they fly to wherever the worms are.  Or small fish or shrimp or fiddler crabs, pretty much whatever they can catch and then swallow.

Snowy Egrets can live 15-16 years in the wild.  They nest in colonies on protected islands, often with other small herons.  The male will begin building the nest.  However, after finding a mate, the female does the majority of the nest building while the male brings most of the materials.  Web sites vary quite a bit whether the Snowy Egret is seasonally monogamous, or lifetime monogamous.  Either way, a pair will incubate 2-6 eggs for about 24 days, with both taking their turn.  Chicks stay in the nest for 20-24 days, then skedaddle to be on their own.

Snowy Egret by Brad Marks

Thank you for reading. If you want to see more bird photos from our South Carolina winter escape, please visit here.

Credits:

Thanks again to Jan and Allyson for proofreading and editing. Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.

50 thoughts on “Cotton Balls on Stilts…by Brad Marks”

  1. Fantastic photos of the beautiful snowballs. Happy to hear Linda made it through another checkup. It makes sense to distance oneself from other patients in a medical setting — who knows what diabolical diseases they are harboring. When I had my stem cells extracted in a hospital setting, they tried to use my port for the blood return. It couldn’t handle the volume of blood, so I had to lie straight armed for eight hours with huge needles in each arm. I know you love needles. Anyway, my port had been accessed three to four times a week in the previous six months at the Cancer Center to deliver chemo and other drugs. I only took the one poke in a filthy hospital to get my port infected. You can read about it here if you would like, https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2016/9/jaime-le-chat-au-chapue.

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    1. Tim, thanks. Your deportation room description sounds like those at St Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis. Though there kids are the primary patients.

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      1. That room was a children’s surgery, but the hospital was full. It’s good that room was available. I had a bone marrow biopsy when they were trying to figure what the cancer was in 2010. That was so painful. The doctor said some children had to have bone marrow biopsies weekly. I felt so bad for those kids. I could feel their pain. I had to have my knees drained weekly when I was 8 years old because of rare disease. That was extremely painful. It took three nurses to hold me down.

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          1. I’m in remission, and often remiss. I still have lingering chemo brain. The nerve damage and the brain fog from intense chemo really suck, but as one oncologist told me, “It’s better than the alternative! You’re above ground!” I can’t argue with that. My Oncologist fired me last year, six years after my stem cell transplant. I went in for a survivor checkup this year.

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        2. I remember my mother having to go through her port issues (had a rare small intestine cancer). She didn’t have the vein/skin strength to go through her chemo, but I always wondered how the port remained in – think she had it replaced at least once due to infection.

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          1. You have to have ports flushed once a month, which is a pain. Literally when pretty intern nurses miss the port and stab you in the chest with an inch long, 18 gauge needle. They were going to put in another port for the stem cell transplant, but I asked the doctor for a picc line. That was easier to install and easy to removed when I left the hospital. When I was explaining all the background to my new GP, she asked how I knew what a picc line was. I was more surprised that she asked the question than she was that I mentioned it.

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    2. Linda says thank you! I don’t fault the entropy play, I do it myself, but still a fun game to successfully predict where someone is going sit. I read your post and will admit, got really queasy immediately after being intrigued by a French Cat in the Hat. First thing I thought of is how to keep the metering in a different language…that was quickly changed by … their gonna do what to him!?! All I can say, is you are a tougher man than I and that I am glad you made it out of there (and that the “aftermath” shot was blurry).

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  2. Nice bird pics. The reflections are nice, especially the one of spreading wings. The yellow feet makes me think the birds are wearing colored galoshes. Especially liked seeing them on the pier and put of the water. That almost seems unusual.

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    1. That’s precisely what I thought Jerry when I saw those bright yellow feet. It reminded me of the brightly colored boots (wellies) that kids wear. Plus the boots are usually tromping through shallow water on the kids way home from school.

      I wasn’t sure if they were all drying out on the pier after being in the water, or if they were waiting for the water to recede before they could start wading for food. Either way, they were lined neatly for a photo.

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    1. Thanks Cheryl. I did learn quite a bit in the digital darkroom about identifying various white wading shore birds. And while I can’t always see the clues through the viewfinder, I’m certain (well, almost certain) to be able to see them on the big screen when we get home. Thanks for dropping by.

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    1. Thanks Ted. We’ve learned that our photo count was merely warming up for the professional photographers. Can you imagine doing that with film? We have a return trip planned for next February, just a bit further south to try someplace new. Stay tuned for more photos.

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  6. First of all, I’m glad to hear that Linda is doing well. Secondly, I love snowy egrets. My old office used to look out over a pond with a little island on it. During the summer cormorants used the island for their summer breeding ground, but as soon as they left, the egrets would move right in. I drove by the park the other day and saw a lot of egrets standing around on the edge of the pond, but the trees on the island were still filled with cormorants. I guess egrets are very patient birds. Nice post about them, Brad!

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    1. Thank you very much for the kind assessment. Our trip to the southeast will be a week or so later than last year, so maybe we will see some of the “displacement” you mentioned. We did see a cormorant, but it never moved. Everyone else was moving around it. Stay tuned for future posts.

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  7. Excellent news, Linda!
    Gini and I have become all-too-frequent visitors to our cardiologist lately. She was informed she apparently had a heart attack recently but didn’t know it. Me? I’m the proud owner of a couple of arterial stents.

    Gini’s favorite saying: “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”

    Great collection of photographs of the stilt birds! I love to watch Snowies hunt in shallow water. They step forward with those golden slippers and stir up the mud to see what pops up.

    One of our local coastal spots has an overload of cotton balls on stilts. Snowy Egrets, young Little Blue Herons, Great Egrets, a white form of Reddish Egret, a white form of Great Blue Heron – throw in the white gulls and terns – not to mention the white sand of the beach – and one can suffer snow blindness right here in Florida!

    Celebrate heart health and enjoy the weekend!

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    1. I found this in my spam folder – completely confused, but my sincere apologies for not seeing it sooner. Linda says thank you – she is definitely relieved, I can imagine the stress this puts here through. You two take care of yourselves, we can’t have anything bad going on with two of our favorite readers. I like Gini’s saying – I have a similar one where I replace old with ultras ha. I’ll let Brad comment on his shots. Take care and watch those tickers!

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    2. Thanks Wally. I enjoy finding whatever wants to hold still for me to photograph. And if they help with a few photos, so much the better. Agree that aging isn’t for the faint of heart (pun not intended).

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  9. Snowy Egreats are my favorite birds and I could watch them forever. The photos of the Little Blue Heron and Egrets are fabulous! They show the birds behavior and it’s so interesting to look at.

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    1. Thank you Kaya. At first I thought they were the same too. Viewfinders and camera LCDs can be so deceiving. Hopefully, we see more of each on our Feb 2024 trip to roughly the same area. This time I’ll know what I’m looking at.

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  10. I remember when I first learned that little Little Blues are white. I was speechless going back through old photos to see how many times I’d seen both Little Blues and Snowys without realizing it. Ooof! I do love the plumes on the Snowys, and the graceful walking of the Little Blues. Young Little Blues also hang about a lot with White Ibis, and while the Snowies often bicker with the Little Blues, there Ibis tolerate the young Little Blues – perhaps because they don’t compete directly for prey. Great shots, I love the Snowy with his wings spread.

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    1. Thanks very much Sam. At least for me the Ibis bill is a giveaway, that is, if I’m paying attention when I’m taking photos. Someday I’d like to see a Little Blue that is, well, actually blue. We had a slight breeze that day making the Snowy fluffiness a bit easier to see. Thanks for stopping by Sam. BTW, working on a TCE-14 for my camera bag.

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  11. Good to hear Linda is doing well. That has to be stress having to go to such a big place, but good news is great. I love all the white birds. I have not taken many bird photos the last few months. Have not seen many except for some eagles in a corn field. 🙂

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    1. Thank you. As for frequency of photos, we take photos where we find birds: marshes, corn fields, rivers, forests or seashore or my back yard. Just being there to capture them is what’s important.

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        1. We were going to head down there over Thanksgiving so I could finally get the Wood Stork checked off my list, but looks like we will be coming a bit short and stopping in Nashville instead (have some commitments to get back for). Take care and hopefully the birding picks up for you.

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