cheriphillips's Favorites

Salvaged and delivered to turtle hospital under Marine Turtle Permit 181. Blown ashore during days of sustained on-shore winds that resulted in injured/dead marine turtles, seabirds, marine vegetation, and of course, anthropogenic trash on Atlantic coast beaches.

These things were in a spring, right at where the water came up out, and there were none anywhere else down stream. They didn't like the flash on my camera at all and they all dissappear once it got light outside.

This was the most bizarre looking Reddish Egret I've ever seen. There are dark and white morphs of this species, but I had never seen a "pied" bird before. I considered the possibility that somehow this was a bird with both dark morph and white morph genes, and that may yet be the case, but it is also possible this is simply a partially leucustic dark morph Reddish Egret. Note that the white feathers are not symmetrical in the wings or on the tail. From some angles it looks like a normal dark morph Reddish Egret, but in flight...Wow! I have posted 8 images of this interesting bird.