The Great Egret struggled to swallow the large fish and even though it readjusted the fish in its bill several times it never swallowed the fish before it dropped it into the lagoon and flew off.
When a few of the grebes caught sight of this Pied-billed Grebe with a large fish they started to chase it over the water.
Earlier this year I photographed this Clark's Grebe and its prey at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah.
This Osprey image was taken in April of 2009 at Fort De Soto's north beach. I had been photographing smaller birds that were close to me when I noticed the Osprey flying in with a whiting.
After posting Great Blue Heron images yesterday I decided to post images of Great Egrets which are also a large wading bird species this morning.
A simple but fishy post today of an Osprey that flew over my head at Fort De Soto County Park taken 5 years ago in Florida.
Three days ago a first of the year sighting from the UBIRD group got me all excited because it means that the Ospreys have returned to Utah!
Long ago in a subtropical clime with plenty of heat, humidity and the occasional hurricane I used to photograph with a small point and shoot camera from Canon and had great fun doing it.
This Osprey flying in from the Gulf over the north beach of Fort De Soto came as a surprise to us so I had little time to prepare and get my setting right due to how fast the Osprey was flying.
I was digging through my image files yesterday and came across a series of Tricolored Heron images that I had never edited from a May morning in 2009 when I was photographing birds at Fort De Soto's north beach.
It was the day after Christmas in 2009 when I watched this four year old Bald Eagle lift off from this pole to catch this fish in the water impoundment nearby and to my surprise it flew right back to the same pole to devour it.
It is cloudy and snowing hard outside this morning so I dug into my files and edited these nesting Osprey images I took last year at Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Utah.
I remember the morning I took this photo well, it was a warm morning in February at Fort De Soto's north beach, the Great Egret was in the tidal lagoon near the Concession Stand and it had been actively hunting when it came up with this Mullet.
While in breeding plumage Tricolored Herons have redder legs, darker red eyes, blue lores and blue on the bill plus a longer, white occipital plume than they do during the nonbreeding season.
In May of this year I camped at Antelope Flat in the Flaming Gorge National recreation Area and near the boat ramp there was an Osprey nest.
I photographed this Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens) in October of 2008 at Fort De Soto's north beach.
Normally during the month of February Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area has hundreds of Bald Eagles within its boundaries but that was not the case in February 2012.
While I lived in Florida I took thousands (and thousands) of images of Reddish Egrets and I am very glad that I did because they are rarities in Utah, where I now live.
There were quite a few Laughing Gulls on and near the shoreline, a few Ring-billed Gulls and two Reddish Egrets hunting on the beach that day.