Fish For Lunch
On a recent trip to Florida we took the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive around the northern edge of Lake Apopka (check if it is open if going as it is closed some days). The road traveled through the marshy areas of the lake atop man-made dikes where lots of water collected in small ponds and streams between the ponds and the lake. It was teeming with birds; we usually do a pretty good job of counting (for eBird purposes) all the individual birds for each species but we gave up counting the American Coots and the Common Gallinules because there were so many (you put an X for the count in eBird when you can’t give a specific number). I got lots of good shots of various species there and I’ll post them in the near future, but one series of pics tickled me and I wanted to share them with you today.
Most of the time we were in the car but they did create a parking lot out in the middle of the marsh with dikes going out in different directions from the lot. We walked down one toward the lake and saw an Anhinga which had just caught a sizable fish. You might recall that Anhinga use their sharp beaks to pierce their prey and then swallow it whole. The Anhinga probably caught this fish while underwater, then brought it up to the service to work it into it’s beak. This was a pretty good size fish – a Big Gulp indeed!
PS – Apologies once again to Rebecca Bowater, whom I keep referring to as Helen Bowater. I have no idea where Helen came from but for some reason I keep typing it instead of Rebecca.
PPS – Welcome our newest member JamesD who jumped right in and posted some great pics of a Bald Eagle, including this one:
Stay Safe. Go Birding. Take Pics. Share Here. Repeat.
Mike
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