A Good Day to be a Great White Egret

Photographer Jim Angy stopped by today with some new pictures to share - real dandies. Jim has been photographing Florida wildlife for over 35 years, but in addition to his considerable technical skills, he has an extensive knowledge of his subjects and a real rapport with many of them. (I frequently tell him he has better critter skills than he does people skills, but in thinking about it, that's not really such a bad thing!)

The first photo is of a Great White Egret catching a pig frog. Jim took this at the Viera Wetlands location that we discussed in our last posting. I'm fond of pig frogs and have a picture of one on my wall, but even so, this makes for an interesting photo.

This second picture reminds me of the old joke about the dog that chased cars and finally caught one but did not know what to do with it after he caught it. Jim tells me that the Egret flew away with the frog in his beak, so we'll never know if or how he managed to swallow it. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

A new year, and things appear to be getting back to pre-holiday normal. Please notice a couple of interesting meetings that I've listed in the Calendar of Events. This coming Thursday, Dr. Duane DeFreese is speaking about the effects of climate change on sea turtles at the Sea Turtle Preservation Society meeting. Duane is such a compelling speaker - you won't want to miss this.

The Monday, January 12, meeting of the Conradina Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society features Blair and Dawn Witherington, authors of Florida's Living Beaches, speaking on Florida's Beach Plants: Thriving on Catastrophe.

In the blog world, snow is still falling in Washington (Amanda added Frank Sinatra's Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow on her music listing today), Florida Cracker mused about rivers of his childhood on his Pure Florida blog (that triggered a lot of childhood memories for several readers), Birdchick posted a funny video on Prairie Chickens, and Cactus Jack is back wearing his tarp because of the cold weather.