Readers’ wildlife

Tara Tanaka in Florida has been busy editing videos, but I found four new ones on her site and am putting them up. Don’t forget to check out her Vimeo site. Her captions are indented:

Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) displaying:

I was photographing Wood Ducks from my blind one afternoon, and when there were no ducks in front of me I peeked out a side window to see if there might be anything interesting, and was shocked to see an otter [JAC: river otter, Lutra canadensis] close by, eating what looked like a turtle. Later we checked and found that it had been a mud turtle [(Kinosternon subrubrum], and the otter left the back third of it, and it is possible that there was a musk gland that he was avoiding.

It’s only March 2nd but spring is in full swing on our swamp. This Great Egret [Ardea alba] was displaying while a female watched from above. I’ve seen this male Anhinga [Anhinga anhinga] and a female in breeding plumage but I’m not sure if they’re a pair, or just thinking about it. Every day more and more Egrets are arriving, and a few are already incubating eggs.

This video was digiscoped using a GH4 + 20/1.7 mounted on a Swarovski STX85 using a Digidapter. The video was shot in 4K and I zoomed in to about 140% in post processing.

and

To say that there’s been a lot of competition for this box would be quite an understatement. The Black-bellied Whistling Ducks [Dendrocygna autumnalis] have been inspecting this box for almost a week, and when a pair gets on the box others join in and some big fights have ensued.

This morning I saw a fast flash of auburn that looked a little different, and I was thrilled to see a hen Hooded Merganser [Lophodytes cucullatus] in the water below the box. I’d been running a camera on another box where I’m expecting baby Wood Ducks [Aix sponsa] to jump any day, but refocused it on this closer box and let it run. About 45 minutes later, after the Whistling Ducks had left, the Merganser landed on top of the box, looked around for over a minute, and then went in the box, and 3 1/2 minutes passed before she left – enough time to lay an egg! It will be interesting to see who ends up with possession of the box, and if it’s the Whistling Ducks, if there will be one or more little Merganser faces in the opening when they jump. The Whistling Ducks are big “walkers”, walking almost everywhere they go, and spending very little time in the water, except to bathe. Mergansers can’t walk well on land as their legs are set much farther back, and spend virtually all of their time in the water. It might be a hard life to be a Merganser duckling in a Whistling Duck family.