These two birds were located 1.7 miles east of the end of "Snake Bight" Trail in Everglades National Park. Both birds were actively feeding. It was quite interesting to watch them "dance", stirring up the bottom with their feet, and then filtering the mix with their bills!
We rented a canoe from Flamingo Marina and paddled for about 2 hours to reach the site. Our trip had to be carefully timed to leave as the tide was coming in, so that the Snake Bight area would have enough water to allow for passage. Thanks to Tim Downey of the Everglades National Park Service for helping us time things right! I doubt that it would have been possible to get identifiable looks at these birds from the end of Snake Bight Trail and photos would certainly have been out of the question (even for Digiscoping!).
By canoeing, we were able to see more of the area and find where the birds were, without any more paddling than necessary! The return trip into the strong southwestern winds meant for 2.5 hours of hard paddling to get back! However, the sore muscles and sun burn were WORTH IT!
The following photos were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 995 Digital Camera with an
Eagle Eye 5x Optic Zoom attached (15x total magnification).
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