Walking at Orlando Wetlands

Always a treat

I went walking recently at Orlando Wetlands Park, a water treatment area at Christmas, FL, about 20 miles east of Orlando. Here are a few of the critters I saw. I’m only posting the larger animals — the insects were varied enough to get their own post later.

This anhinga caught a bluegill but was unsure what to do next. Anhingas are spear fishers that use their sharp, pointed bill to stab the fish. However they swallow their prey whole, meaning they can only eat a fish that’s smaller than their throat. This bluegill was too large to go down easily. After trying several times to swallow it it gave up. But nature rarely wastes. A great blue heron arrived to eat the meal the anhinga had caught.

This is the heron that ate the anhinga’s lunch — quite literally. Great blue herons are the biggest of the birds in the marsh and have no problem driving a smaller bird off a kill.

The black-bellied whistling duck always reminds me of a stuffed animal. They sit very still when not feeding and their coloring seems like it was selected to appeal to kids — the gray head with black mohawk, the brown and black body and the ridiculous orange bill. And don’t forget they whistle instead of quacking like most ducks.

Here’s a bald eagle. This was a long distance shot. Several others that I took were blurred. I tried to wait until he turned his head toward me but he was watching something on the other side and never looked at me. That’s not an eagle’s nest below him as their nests are much larger.

The way to photograph a glossy ibis is on a sunny day with the sun behind you. That brings out all of the colors hidden in the black looking feathers — understated greens and purples make for a beautiful picture. But in this case it was a cloudy day and all of the detail is lost. Sadly.

A pair of juvenile white ibises. The ibis on the right has almost completely grown into his adult white plumage. The one on the left still has a ways to go.

Green heron, also called the greenback heron. I tried to take this picture with a relatively shallow depth-of-field to get the heron sharply in focus with a blurred background. Unfortunate I missed slightly with the focus. The sky is still mostly in focus but the heron is slightly out of focus.

Here’s what I tried to do with the heron picture. In this case the red-winged blackbird is in sharp focus with the background blurred. But it’s always a guess when you’re trying to adjust to take a picture of a bird flying by. I wrote an entire post on this shot. Click here if you're interested.

Here’s a wood stork looking for prey in the marsh. They sometimes raise their wings to block the glare so they can see the prey better. This guy was walking slowly, looking for a fish.

Overall I love walking at Orlando Wetlands Park. There are always lots of animals to see. Currently they’re building a new visitor’s center there, opening in Spring 2021. I’m looking forward to it’s completion.

In this blog I’ll be talking about nature, nature photography, natural places (especially in Central Florida) and whatever else catches my eye. If you like this please hit the share button. Or you can subscribe and be notified via email when I post. Thanks for coming by.

Or leave a comment about the article.