I got two new batches of photos! So hooray for the readers! Today’s photos come from Ephraim Heller, whose captions and IDs are indented. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Little St. Simons Island is an 11,000-acre barrier island on the coast of Georgia. Much of it is salt marsh, with a few islands in freshwater ponds for wading bird rookeries. I was lucky to spend a week there in April, during the nesting season. This post focuses on the wading birds, and my next post will focus on other species.
I got up before sunrise every day to bicycle to the rookery:
Like flamingos, roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja) cannot synthesize pink pigments on their own. Instead, the carotenoid pigments accumulated from shrimp, crayfish, and other invertebrates eaten over a lifetime are deposited directly into growing feathers. Young birds have pale, nearly white plumage; the color deepens progressively with age, so a deep magenta spoonbill is also an older one.
The distinctive, flattened, spatulate bill is a swept laterally through shallow water with the mandibles slightly open, detecting prey by touch rather than sight, necessary in turbid water.
During courtship, male and female spoonbills initially interact with some aggression, then settle into ritualized exchanges: perching close together, presenting sticks to each other, and clasping bills.
Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) lack waterproofed outer plumage that repels water. While enabling the birds to pursue fish underwater, they must subsequently dry their feathers before they can fly efficiently. Hence, the familiar spread-winged posture seen on sunny perches. Wing-spreading also serves thermoregulatory functions, helping the birds warm up after a cold swim.
Stick-carrying by the male is pair bonding behavior: the male begins nest construction before he has a mate, placing large sticks in tree forks, and continues to supply material while the female does most of the actual building.
During breeding, the bill of the tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor) shifts to a brilliant blue with a black tip, the loral skin becomes cobalt blue, and the iris turns scarlet red. The individuals I saw must not yet have been in their breeding plumage.
The prehistoric-looking wood stork (Mycteria americana) is the only stork species that breeds in North America. The species was listed as federally endangered in 1984 after its population dropped more than 75% from 1930s levels, primarily due to habitat alteration in the Florida Everglades. It was downlisted to threatened in 2014 following population expansion northward into Georgia and the Carolinas. Georgia is now a stronghold. In 2026, the federal government removed the species from the threatened list, reflecting a breeding population estimated at 10,000–14,000 nesting pairs across roughly 100 colonies.
Wood storks require falling water levels at foraging sites. As water recedes, prey concentrates in shrinking pools, providing the density of fish that a nesting pair needs to raise chicks. A pair with active nestlings requires approximately 400 pounds of fish over a breeding season.
The great egret’s (Ardea alba) breeding plumage almost drove the species to extinction. In spring, the loral skin shifts from yellow to a vivid lime green, and long, filamentous plumes (aigrettes, from the French for egret) grow from the shoulder region, trailing over the back. Each aigrette consists of approximately 35 strands of slim feathers. These plumes develop for the breeding season and are shed afterward.
In the late 19th century, the aigrettes for the millinery (hat-making) trade commanded prices per ounce that were twice that of gold, and hunters shot entire breeding colonies in a single event. The resulting public backlash was instrumental in forming the early conservation movement in the United States. In 1896, Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall organized Boston society women into a boycott of feathered hats, which led directly to the founding of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and eventually the National Audubon Society. The Massachusetts Audubon Society, in turn, helped pass the 1897 Massachusetts law prohibiting the feather trade, the 1900 Lacey Act, and eventually the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The great egret is now the symbol of the National Audubon Society.
10-12. In the colony, the male selects a nest territory and then displays: calling, performing circular flights, and stretching the neck upward with the bill pointed skyward. Males bring sticks to females sitting on nests for pair-bond reinforcement.
The aigrettes of the snowy egret (Egretta thula) were even more valuable to plume hunters than those of the great egret, and by around 1900 scientists estimated that as few as 250 snowy egrets remained in North America. Numbers recovered rapidly once hunting stopped, but habitat loss remains an issue. In these photos you can see that the loral skin of some birds is yellow (non-breeding plumage) and in other birds it is pink (breeding plumage).
