An adorable baby tiger and a stately egret

68 thoughts on “An adorable baby tiger and a stately egret”

1. The camera work, editing, and overall high production quality of that heron video are wonderful. That bird acts very differently than the Great Blue Herons I’m used to.

   1. Check out Tara’s other stuff on Vimeo.

      1. Thanks so much for posting this Rick, and for making me aware of this fantastic site!

   2. Thanks so much Stephen!

      1. I’ve been considering buying a spotting scope and that Swarovski STX 85 looks interesting. Your excellent video has sparked my interest in digiscoping. Would a Canon 5D III DSLR be a good match? I see that you use a mirrorless camera that I suppose has some advantages, like minimizing vibration. I’d be taking mostly still photos.

         1. Hi Stephen, I submitted a rather lengthy reply, and maybe it just needs to be approved but I’m not seeing it. If it’s still not there later I’ll re-submit it.
            Tara

            1. I’ll ask Jerry to send you my email address. (There’s nothing I like better than buying and using top quality, obscenely expensive optics.)

2. You can come out now and unlock the door. They have made an arrest – an off campus student.

   Reported on CNN just a few minutes ago.

3. Credits to Navy Beans, it was someone who wasn’t ready for an exam or to turn in a paper. My daughter’s school had a bomb threat week before last. With admirable sang froid she shrugged it off as someone’s way to get out of an test. I knew a guy in college who was notorious for coming up with ways to delay his tests. Nowadays I could imagine him doing this.

   1. Now I see that they arrested a UIC student. Obviously, he got confused about what school he went to. It was much clearer when they called it Circle.

4. sub

5. I had never bothered to look it up but apparently Fox has owned the National Geographic television since it started. This adds to the Magazine they just got as well.
   There are at least two channels NGC and NGW and most of the cat stuff they talked about in the video will be on NGW. NGC has some rather stupid programming and the Fox ownership would explain that.

6. The egret is both beautiful and elegant, but it seems rather inefficient in that it is always stalking and charging around after fish. If I were an egret I would stand still and wait for the fish to wander closer.

   1. I agree that Big Red did not seem to be as efficient as he could be. Perhaps he was distracted. I have observed several other types of egrets hunting / foraging many times and generally they have been much more efficient than Big Red in this video. But Big Red has definitely got more style than most!

   2. Could be, but that’s how reddish egrets act: running around like drunken maniacs. Snowy egrets do it too on occasion, but it isn’t their preferred method as it is with reddish egrets.

      1. You seem to know these critters pretty well. Maybe you could offer an explanation as to the relative efficiency of hunting methods. My thought is that this bird is using more energy than it gains. Could it be that this is a juvenile which has not refined it’s technique? A mature bird would perhaps be more effective and efficient.

         1. Here’s my two cents, and I don’t know anything about Reddish Egrets but what I saw. It depends on the prey size. The Great Blue Herons I see would ignore those tiny fish. They sit still when hunting, looking for bigger prey, and they’ll eat anything they can swallow.

            Excellent video.

            1. Reddish egrets do seem to be minnow and small creature specialists — things that may be hard to see. I think they run around to get their prey to move so they can see it better. They usually do a lot more wing spreading and flapping than seen here, as I remember. I’ve not seen one in c. 10 years though.

            2. Yes, they try to get their prey moving.

         2. I can’t find any literature testing the efficiency of different strategies. But reddish egrets, not just juveniles, are known for this sort of behavior, so I must assume that it’s an effective foraging strategy. The fact that snowy egrets do it only occasionally suggests to me that it’s a strategy that works only in certain situations, situations that reddish egrets encounter frequently, snowy egrets seldom, and other herons never. (Checking the literature, I am reminded that tricolored herons do it too, but I don’t have a handle on the frequency.)

            1. Fascinating. I’d love to try doing some research on energy expenditure of these birds. Since the work differs by species, I would think that it could be useful to quantify the behavior and compare. Obviously, all these methods must work, or the species would not still be here.
               Regardless, they are very beautiful creatures and fascinating to watch. I know that making good images and films must seem like a great privilege.

            2. It could be just the great music (and the anthropomorphic bias) but the dramatic head feather flouncing to me suggested display as a contribution. How does a bowerbird’s strategic energy efficiency compare?

            3. I found the music a bit OTT, and had to switch it off.

         3. The well developed shaggy ‘mane’ and the brightly coloured bare parts (legs, bill, lores) suggest to me that this is not a juvenile but an adult in breeding condition. The Reddish Egret is known for its very active hunting behaviour – which as commented below – obviously works for it as it has not yet gone extinct!
            Most heron and egret species do show a variety of feeding behaviours including stand and wait and more active chasing of prey. Little Egrets (Egretta garzetta) and Snowy Egrets (E. thula) both spend a lot of time foot stirring which presumably flushes small invertebrates out into the water column where they are catchable, for example. Presumably the method used by an individual heron will reflect the type of habitat and prey it is exploiting at the time and perhaps also individual specialisation (it is known in other species, such as some shorebirds, that individuals specialise on certain feeding techniques).
            The reddish egret in the film does seem to be fairly inefficient as it makes a number of lunges that do not catch anything ((and one where the fish is dropped) but as we know many predators have a surprisingly poor ratio of successful to unsuccessful hunts so perhaps we should not be too surprised.

7. Tara Tanaka makes that amazing video look easy. It is anything but. Digiscoping is quite an art and she does it pretty much better than most anyone around. She has (deservedly) won some awards for her digiscoped images. If anyone has not seen her video of Wood Ducks emerging from their nest box, they need to Google her name and Wood Ducks. I am glad that somehow she is familiar with this site, as I have been an admirer of hers and WEIT for some time.

   1. Very kind words Josh, thanks SO much. I feel such a connection to my subjects that I think it must come through – digiscoping is very technical, but I think it’s the love that people connect to :-).

8. Loved the heron video!

   Great cats, too, but really really annoying interviewer.

   1. Thanks Merilee!! Are you in Florida??

      1. No, near Toronto. But my cousin Merilee Turner lives in Key West.

9. The video of Big Red is wonderful. Gorgeous creature, beautifully captured.

   1. Thank you Darrelle!!

10. That Big Red video is brilliant! Thanks, Tara.

    Loved the kittehs; the panther is so affectionate and playful. Boone Smith is a fine specimen too.

    1. Yeah, I noticed that Boone wasn’t hard on the eyes;-) Both kittehs wonderful in very different ways. My 15-lb Booker T is a big lug with huge feet like the tiger. The black cat was much more agile. The interviewer was way too perky/

       1. Yes, I was quite captivated by the tiger cub’s huge paws. It was amusing to see how Boone bounced her on his knee to quiet her. We used to do that with our kids. 🙂

          Booker is a big boy! Our old kitteh gained a pound since the start of Autumn, and is now about 7 lbs. She is 18 y.o. and can still jump the chasm between the sofa and the chair (about 3′). She used to leap high fences in her younger days.

          1. Your 18 yr old is really doing well; especially gaining weight at her/his age! My kittehs usually got kind of boney-assed (literally) by that age. Yes Booker is a big, silly loverboy. His big paddles of feet sometimes make quite a mess shovelling the litter outside the box:-)

             1. We’re plying her with food these days, esp. this whole gourmet food Tiki Cat brand that’s her new favourite. She looks a lot better now. In the summer she seemed to forget to eat, and loved just lolling about the garden. And then she was going for mostly Fancy Feast chicken liver and some salmon. But then I heard on the news that Fancy Feast uses seafood caught by slave labour used by this Thai company. I was most aghast and have stopped buying that brand.

             2. Awful about Fancy Feast! Our critters mainly only get dry food, but we do give elderly Currie-the-Pooch that Caesar crap when we’re travelling. She gets picky about eating when we’re away from home so we put a little bit of wet food on top of her kibble. We chose the Caesar because of the small peel-back-lidded containers. We may have to change brands now because my vet recently told me that Fancy Feast and Caesar are identical, and not especially good for either kittehs or poochehs (aka d*gs).

             3. Whoops, I was worng about Fancy Feast = Caesar. It’s Sheba=Caesar.

    2. Thanks!! You’re very welcome.

11. When I was very much younger, I was hired to record the foraging behavior of snowy egrets, and had the opportunity to observe a number of other wading birds. My favorite was the tricolored (“Louisiana”) heron. Very patient bird. None of this prancing around bullshit. Wait and watch. Wait and watch. Maybe a bit of foot stirring. But, as they say, whatever works.

    1. What a fantastic job that must have been!

       1. Ah, but it also involved sampling in the middle of a Spartina salt marsh. My hands would get so swollen from biting flies that I was embarrassed to go out in public.

    2. I have spent quite a bit of time over the past few years watching tricolored herons forage, though not in a formal way, and my experiences agree with yours. They seem to have a high success rate too, though that may just be an artifact of the few areas in which I typically observe them.

       I was curious reading John Harshman above relate that tricolors also behave similar to Big Red, though he did not know the frequency of such behavior by them. I’ve never seen a tricolored behave like that.

       1. Hi Ken,

          I have observed a number of tricolored herons with similar hunting styles, although they tend to stalk a bit more, but are not at all shy about spinning. I have a video I shot of one that I’ve never posted that is prancing around a large alligator, with both wings spread and held high, hunting in a shallow pool. He had some of the most dramatic moves I’ve ever seen in a tricolored.

          The other day I was photographing a Great Egret, a Tricolored Heron, a Snowy Egret and a Great Blue Heron all hunting in a canal in a refuge as the tide went out. The Great Egret was the most active hunter I’d ever seen of that species, and I got many flight shots of him as he’d make short flights to get to a more productive spot in the small area. One of the most interesting things of the morning was that although none of the birds showed any aggression or inkling of competition with the other species, a second Great Egret, Tricolored and Snowy all tried to land in the lagoon, and each was immediately and aggressively chased from the area by the corresponding bird of its species.

          Tara

          1. Fascinating! Thank you for sharing.

          2. I love your behavioral observations too. This and the remark about leaving the water to defecate are most thought-provoking.

             1. In this video that I shot from our back yard a few months ago, you can see a feeding Roseate Spoonbill at around 1:00 suddenly get the urge to go, walk up on dry land, and then immediately return to the water to feed. The just-fledged Wood Storks didn’t really have much of a feeding style down yet, and spent a lot of time bathing and picking at one another.

             2. Wow, that just looks so obvious! I’ll have a lot more to look for the next time I’m watching waders!

                And the light on that cypress swamp is just stunning; as is the composition & content, of course!

12. “I have no idea how it spots the birds…”

    I know you meant the fish.

    National Geographic? Where’s the Jeebus? Now I’m scrutinizing the tiger cub’s fur patterns for an image of the Virgin Mary.

13. Regarding the Nat Geo Big Cat thing on PuffHo, I ignored it for several reasons that I won’t get into.

14. Just the other day I was watching a great blue heron fishing in a local pond. Stupidly, I didn’t bother videoing it, but if I had, I would have gotten a great scene of the bird catching a rather large fish, looked like a smallmouth bass, and tossing it on the shore to better handle it, whereupon the fish adroitly flipped itself back into the water, escaping its fate.
    After that, the heron only caught little minnows.

15. Spectacular vid, Tara!

    1. Thank you Diane!!

16. That is an astonishing video. Thank you for sharing, Tara!
    It somehow reminds me a bit of how many of us probably look in the morning, after the first cup of strong coffee, dashing around to pick up keys, phone, etc, before running out of the door…

    1. Thanks Dennis – yes if the birds could only see us :-).

17. Je ne’red-egret rien!
    Sorry!

    1. Or once bittern twice shy?

       1. Je ne’red-egret rien!

          +1

          1. Merde.
             +2

18. First, thanks so much to Rickflick for sharing my video on this great site! I’m so glad to have found it, and so many thoughtful observers of wildlife.

    Reddish Egrets are not common, but living in Florida I’ve had more opportunities than most to observe them. Every one I’ve seen shares the hunting characteristics of this bird, however I think Big Red is the most elegant and dramatic of any I’ve seen. On my last trip, I believe I discovered the reason that he flares his head and neck feathers — it’s to shade the water to give him a view of the fish below the surface!! We’ve all seen other birds like Wood Storks spread their wings for that purpose, but I believe Big Red’s delicate control over those feathers is yet another way to improve his view. He is a mature male in breeding colors and plumage, as noted by Jonathan.

    Interestingly every fish I’ve ever seen him eat has been shiny silver. Another behavior that I first noticed with him but have since observed in Roseate Spoonbills and Great Egrets, all birds that hunt in shallow water, is that after they have hunted for a while and need to relieve themselves, they will walk to the nearest shore and do it there, not in the water in which their feeding–which always makes me wonder why humans have chosen to dispose of their waste into the same pure water that supplies our drinking water….

    I wanted to thank those who posted the nice comments about my digiscoping. The opportunity to watch that bird through a viewfinder, with everything else blocked from view, and anticipate his next move and be in sync with him as I am when I’m there is one of the highlights of my life. To get to share it with others who see his beauty the way I do is beyond words.

    This is a Reddish Egret that I believe is younger, and right after he ate this fish Big Red flew in and chased him for at least 1/8 mile, out of my sight, to regain control of this lagoon. This was by far the largest fish I’ve ever seen any Reddish Egret eat.

    And one more that those who enjoy bird behavior might enjoy

    Please excuse the silly little talk I had with this Gull at the beginning of the video – hopefully you’ll find the unique feeding behavior worth it!

    1. I’m glad you made a visit to WEIT and hope you will join in some of our discussions. I’ve been watching your films on Vimeo for a while now. As a bit of a film maker myself, I can well appreciate your skill. The two additional Vimeo links you provided are not just beautifully photographed, but provide a great opportunity to study fascinating behavior.

       1. Thanks Rick!

    2. Interesting comment about Big Red using his neck feathers to create shade to help see the fish. The species that has taken this to the limit is the African Black Egret Egretta ardesiaca, which uses its wings to create an umbrella-like canopy over the water when hunting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gepRyOILsxE. I have seen flocks of them hunting together and it is a very striking sight!

       1. That was a fantastic video! I’ve never heard of that species before, but he has the color of a Little Blue Heron, the plumes of a Snowy/Reddish Egret, the feet of a Snowy, and his very own hunting style!

       2. I caught a bit of “Winged Migration” last night, and African Black Egret was in it. I guess I had seen but not remembered it. The behavior in the link you posted was actually better depicted.

    3. Two more amazing videos! The “neck action” of the younger Reddish after he swallows the fish is amazing! The way your close-ups emphasize the size and power of those wings is amazing. The close-ups of the gull, and then the flight shots–you took those through a spotting scope?!–are amazing. And I love the feeding behavior. I’ve observed it with west coast gulls cracking open scallops, but it’s far more entertaining with a gesticulating crab. 😀

       (…decided to forego the search for different adjectives…”amazing” just covers everything.)

       1. Ditto. Fantastic!! Loved the sideways glug glug glug down the hatch.

          1. Thanks so much Diane and Merilee!! Yes, all through a spotting scope. I had never seen a Reddish Egret swallow anything even CLOSE to that size!

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