These birds are ready to party.
Okay, they aren’t partying. This is a different thing, obviously, that has to do with birds and worms.
Again my general ornithological ignorance is on display, as details go, but these visitors to the yard across the street are ibis. For my style of photography, they are convenient.
Frequently here in Central Florida you can find a series of holes in the lawn. That’s the work of these birds, and while I’ve seen them for years around my house I know nothing about them.
Late morning on a weekday, I happened to look outside and see a small group on the lawn across the street. I haven’t had much of a chance to use my new million dollar lens. Camera tragics know how this plays out, too – when you don’t have it, you are certain that you would mount that thing every day and be getting images of … something. And I would, if I didn’t have to do stuff like work, and so on.
Anyway, when I saw this group I thought it might be like a good drill. How fast can I get out the monopod, mount the 70-200mm, get the camera on it and make a stealthy approach?
I should have timed myself, I know I would be impressed. I walked in a wide semi-circle and the birds just stayed busy at their lawn buffet.
I’ve cropped most of the images here. I kept a good distance in order not to disturb them. But for all my ignorance of the wildlife all around me, I observed something that makes sense but I had never witnessed.
I clearly saw two of the birds get a worm. But they left the lawn and moved onto the sidewalk, where a shallow puddle had formed from some light rain. They dipped the worm in the puddle to wash it off before eating it. This seems so obvious but until this I’d never seen it before and know nothing about the ibis.
Makes for some cool pictures, though.