Days in White Satin

Apologies to those patiently waiting for the far more entertaining stories from Brad and Jan, but I missed a small window I had between their trips into the field. Went with the two-parter on the RomEos (did everyone catch the RE or Reddish Egret secret coding there ha) and that ended up pushing us through February and now they are filling up their tins with new adventures. Have no worries, Brad has filled up his post queue so we’ll be getting to those upon their return – we like to keep our operatives focused in the field and not having to find creative ways to get access for replies etc. Long story short, you are stuck with me for at least the next couple of posts.

Being that we just featured a rather large, white (morphed) shorebird in our last two posts, decided to keep the theme going to start March off.

Granted, today’s featured feathered friend is larger than the Reddish Egret and naturally white versus a genetic variation, but you get the picture (literally ha). Hit the jump to learn more about these breeding plumaged Great Egrets – I promise to limit my use of song lyrics this time hehehe.

This is actually our second post from the High Island Rookery. The first one was released back in December during our “Baby Month” series (link here). Trust me, I have a LOT of pictures from that visit that will be showing up from time to time in the future – and yes, that does mean my backlog is now officially crept out to the two year level as these were taken on our March/April trip to Texas. I have only my own laziness and twitchy shutter finger to blame!

“Now, look what we have here before us. We got the Saracens sitting next to the Jones Street Boys. We’ve got the Moonrunners right by the Van Cortlandt Rangers. Nobody is wasting nobody. That… is a miracle. And miracles is the way things ought to be. Can you dig it?”

Note, in my defense, I promised limited use of lyrics, you can’t expect me not to weave in my favorite movies, it’s kinda my thing!

There were numerous species leveraging the Smith Oaks rookery when we were there. This was our first time in High Island during the breeding season, but guessing this was customary for the area. There were no Moonrunners or Van Cortlandt Rangers, but plenty of Cormorants, Anhingas, Tricolored Herons, Snowy Egrets, Spoonbills and, as you see, Great Egrets staking claims to their favorite branches.

The most active while we were there were the Great Egrets. Most of the nests looked like they had already finished the construction phase with most of the couples paired up and resident in the ones we could see from the observation boardwalk. According to Cornell, the males are responsible for the initial building of the nesting area utilizing long sticks prior to even finding that season’s mate.

Final tweaks are then performed between the couple with the most commonly requested modification being the removal of support beams to accommodate the trendy “open” floorplan. For the curious, A close second is the removal of the old backsplash and replacing them with “subway” tiles patterns and the addition of shiplap wall panels in order to complete the Magnolia Homes transformation. If you look close in this next shot you can almost make out the trendy powder blue sofa pillows.

…wait, my mistake, those are not pillows, rather eggs. This particular Great Egret decided to keep an eye on its nosy neighbor, the breeding Tricolored Heron – this happens to be the very first time I have been able to observe the brilliant blue lores of a breeding Tri, quite cool!

I do not know if it was just a coincidence or the mate noticing the concerned look near the nest, but the likely male flew up to a nearby branch and also kept a watchful eye on the Tri intruder.

I would have to lean more to the “coinqidinky” theory as there really didn’t seem to much overall concern elsewhere in the rookery. Birds were flying in and out the area very regularly and at times not the most graceful entries. The large Egrets were pretty nimble on their landing, but the Spoonies looked like had “Spent All Day in the Sun Drinking Absinthe on an Empty Stomach” causing quite the ruckus as they attempted to navigate the landing.

That sound you hear is my patting myself on my back for FINALLY being able to use a description once applied to describing Vincent van Gogh’s infamous alcoholism. Loved that ever since I read it in a Kellen Perry article. Sorry, back to the story..wait..speaking of Absinthe, check out the breeding neon green lores of the Great Egret.

…and those gorgeous plumes that almost caused its extinction thanks to the fashion world in the nineteenth century. Sorry Vogue and the rest of the fashion industry rags, you long lost the right to lecture me on anything.

I was incredibly entertaining to watch the behavioral interactions among the residents of the rookery. For the most part everyone was pretty docile. The Anhinga parents took turns on their nests, the Cormorants just kind of sat there and hurled Statler and Waldorf taunts towards the paparazzi on the observation deck and the Spoons, well they just pretty much “Made a bloody mess of the place“.

In contrast, the Great Egrets kept themselves pretty busy. The males were routinely leaving the nest and flying down to the waters below the deck. There they would hunt around for a bit before picking out the perfect stick from the brush along the banks.

Once the perfect specimen was selected, it would make its way back to the nest and present it to the mate. Basically a continuation of their mating ritual. From time to time the presented stick would be rejected – likely due to not having the official Magnolia Homes logo on it, in which the dejected Egret was forced to fly back to the silos and select another more pleasing (and more expensive) offering. If accepted, the female would then spend the rest of the day rearranging the nest to properly stage the stick. (Side note, I am patiently waiting for my wife to reach over and slap me with all these Magnolia references hehehehe)

If you are curious, I did manage to take some video with my cell phone while I was there. For Christmas, Linda gave me a really nice Osmo Action camera so the quality of my videos will be going up tremendously for future field videos and Halloween tutorials.

Take care everyone, hope you enjoyed this look back at our visit to the High Island Rookery.