My new granddaughter in my niece's phone capture.

Palmer was born on Monday at 1:30 PM on June 10th, 2013 and was 6 lbs 10 oz. My first granddaughter and oldest is holding her new little sister. She is thrilled.

The Great Egret is a dazzling sight in many a North American wetland. Slightly smaller and more svelte than a Great Blue Heron, these are still large birds with impressive wingspans. They hunt in classic heron fashion, standing immobile or wading through wetlands to capture fish with a deadly jab of their yellow bill. What I'd really like to show is the skeletal and musculature structure of the wing's leading edge. You can see the bone and muscle in this back lit image almost like x-ray. To me the interesting thing is all that you see is a single finger that evolved into the entire wing. Those joints are the joints of a finger. The rest of the hand vanished because it wasn't needed. Some dinosaur raptor evolved into all the birds we know today. The dinosaurs never truly went extinct. They just became birds.

A small white heron of pastures and roadsides, the Cattle Egret is more at home foraging in grass than in water. It follows cattle, horses, and tractors to catch the insects they stir up. Their nests are shallow, bowl-shaped nest of sticks. It is placed in trees and shrubs in colonies with other herons.

This is a freshly hatched Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) chick in the nest. The Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) is a species of heron (family Ardeidae) found in the tropics and subtropics. It is the only member of the monotypic genus Bubulcus, although some authorities regard its two subspecies as full species, the Western Cattle Egret and the Eastern Cattle Egret. @Wikipedia

The Great Egret (Ardea alba), also known as Common Egret, Large Egret or Great White Heron, is a large, widely-distributed egret. Distributed across most of the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the world, in southern Europe it is rather localized. In North America it is more widely distributed, and it is ubiquitous across the Sun Belt of the United States and in the Neotropics. The Old World population is often referred to as the Great White Egret. This species is sometimes confused with the Great White Heron of the Caribbean, which is a white morph of the closely related Great Blue Heron (A. herodias). @Wikipedia

Only birds that do not live in the extreme north and south of their range migrate and do so based on temperature and available sunlight. Anhingas will migrate towards the equator during winter but this range is determined by the amount of sunshine to warm the chilled birds. @Wikipedia On second viewing, I'm wondering if this is a male bird feeding his female partner. She has that typical two-toned look with the tan neck of an adult female. His is the black of an adult male. She's either an adult of so close to fledging, I can't tell. Maybe a better birder could email me.

Small male tacking a little more than he might wish to mate with.

A medium-sized, slender heron of the southeastern United States, the Tricolored Heron was formerly known as the Louisiana Heron. @Cornell Labs

The Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga), sometimes called Snakebird, Darter, American Darter, or Water Turkey, is a water bird of the warmer parts of the Americas. It gets its name Snakebird for its habit of swimming with just its long head and neck sticking out of the water. The Anhinga lives in shallow, slow-moving, sheltered waters and uses nearby perches and banks for drying and sunning. Information gathered from various sources.

Snowy Egrets (Egretta thula) in Flight over a Florida Wetland's pond during the Spring mating season. A small, active white heron, the Snowy Egret is found in small ponds as well as along the ocean shore. Its black legs and yellow feet quickly identify it. The breeding range in eastern North America extends along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from Maine to Texas, and inland along major rivers and lakes. Their flat, shallow nests are made of sticks and lined with fine twigs and rushes. Three to four greenish-blue, oval eggs are incubated by both adults.

It's American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) breeding season and right in the middle of Florida wading bird nesting season. This is not the time for a Snowy Egret and a Common Egret to be fighting over wading rights smack dab in the center of where mom and dad alligator want to make baby gators.

he Great Egret (Ardea alba), also known as Common Egret, Large Egret or Great White Heron, is a large, widely-distributed egret. Distributed across most of the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the world, Wikipedia® What we have here are larger fledgelings being fed by one of the parents at the nest. I would imagine they will no longer be there shortly.

The Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor) formerly known in North America as the Louisiana Heron, is a small heron. It is a resident breeder from the Gulf states of the USA and northern Mexico south through Central America and the Caribbean to central Brazil and Peru. There is some post-breeding dispersal to well north of the nesting range. Tricolored Heron's breeding habitat is sub-tropical swamps. It nests in colonies, often with other herons, usually on platforms of sticks in trees or shrubs. In each clutch, 3–7 eggs are typically laid. Wikipedia®

Brown Pelicans feed by plunging into the water, stunning small fish with the impact of their large bodies and scooping them up in their expandable throat pouches. When not foraging, pelicans stand around fishing docks, jetties, and beaches or cruise the shoreline. In flight, lines of pelicans glide on their broad wings, often surfing updrafts along wave faces or cliffs. Their wingbeats are slow, deep, and powerful.

Swirling over beaches with strident calls and a distinctive, crisp black head, Laughing Gulls provide sights and sounds evocative of summer on the East Coast. You’ll run across this handsome gull in large numbers at beaches, docks, and parking lots, where they wait for handouts or fill the air with their raucous calls. Laughing Gulls are summer visitors to the Northeast and year-round sights on the coasts of the Southeast and the Gulf of Mexico. *CornellLab

The Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is a comically elegant bird with an oversized bill, sinuous neck, and big, dark body. Squadrons glide above the surf along southern and western coasts, rising and falling in a graceful echo of the waves. They feed by plunge-diving from high up, using the force of impact to stun small fish before scooping them up.

Orchid with five image stack

The Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is a small pelican found in the Americas. It is one of the best known and most prominent birds found in the coastal areas of the southern and western United States. It is one of only 3 pelican species found in the Western Hemisphere. The Brown Pelican is one of the only two pelican species which feeds by diving into the water. The Brown Pelican is now a staple of crowded coastal regions and is tolerated to varying degrees by fishermen and boatmen. It is the national bird of Barbados and the Turks and Caicos Islands, and state bird of Louisiana. It is also one of the mascots of Tulane University and is on the seals of Tulane University,

Nikon 80-400 f/4.5-5.6 AFS VR at 400mm, its longest extension.