Snowy Egrets engaged in foot-dragging feeding behavior

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I had many opportunities to view and photograph the foot-dragging feeding behavior of Snowy Egrets while spending December, 2024 and January, 2025 in Titusville, Florida. Eight photos of successful behavior in which the catch can be seen in the beak of the bird are shown below. The last photo captured an occasion in which success may have been thwarted because a tern reached the prey first.

Both birds in the photo above have minnows in their beaks. It was when I saw pools of water with multiple birds simultaneouly engaged in the foot-dragging behavior that I was motivated to photograph the action. Thus, my efforts to photograph the foot-dragging behavior almost never yielded a photo of a single bird in the frame. The photos showing a single bird are cropped versions of the original.

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David Sparks

I retired in 2005 after 40 years of research and teaching at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (24 years), the University of Pennsylvania (8 years) and the Baylor College of Medicine (8 years). Photography is my retirement hobby.

Nature photography, especially bird photography, combines a number of things that I really enjoy: bird-watching, being outdoors, photography, travel, messing about with computers, and learning new skills and concepts.  I now spend much of my time engaged in these activities.

David Sibley in the preface to The Sibley Guide to Birds wrote "Birds are beautiful, in spectacular as well as subtle ways; their colors, shapes, actions, and sounds are among the most aesthetically pleasing in nature."  My goal is to acquire images that capture the beauty and uniqueness of selected species as well as images that highlight the engaging behaviors the birds exhibit.