Venice Area Audubon Rookery

On Monday we drove North to Venice Beach to visit our long time friend Jan. These visits do not happen often enough since we always seem to have an adventure, and lunch too. Laughter is always the main course.

Jan took us to the Venice Area Audubon Rookery, what a hoot!  I have never seen to many different species of birds sharing such a small area to build their nests. Many visitors just sat in lawn chairs with binoculars in hand, watching the continuous show.

I have tried to identify as many birds as I can, but there are errors without doubt. I will appreciate any corrections.

Apparently, the anhingas and cormorants were the first to nest, with many more birds just about to hatch. It was great fun to watch the parents feed their young: rarely a quiet or civilized affair.  Talk about abuse of the parents...

These pictures are shown in the order they were made. I have trouble sorting them out in the blog without losing things to the ether, so please bear with me.

Here is a pair of young anhinga siblings, behaving as siblings do...

Next is a Great Blue Heron nesting in a bush of red berries, how cool is that?

This is a female anhinga, the male being almost completely black.

These are the same siblings that opened this post. They can be nice...

... but not when Dad is feeding them. Note that one sibling has his head in Dad's beak, and the other is also trying to get in...

This aggressiveness can last quite a while. Poor parent.

Mind you, after the parent leaves, the sibling vocalize their gratitude. ...not!

The great white heron is next. Their breeding plumage is very showy and it always looks like a bad hair day. Stunning though.

Next are the cormorants: they are black, have a shorter tail than the anhingas, and their young seemed more advanced than the anhinga youngsters. They also have a hooked beak.

This is one of the parents on the right, making the youngster stretch out if he wants food. Much easier to avoid the abuse, I'm sure.

A close-up of the Great White Heron, in full breeding colours. Isn't that green stunning? 

After walking around the pond, we spotted this Sandhill Crane, another very large bird.

We also came up on the anhinga with a bit of a problem with lunch. We stood by as she tried swallowing her catch face first. The fish likely died a few minutes earlier, but our fisherman just couldn't get lunch down the gullet. She would periodically toss the fish in the air to reposition the head, but more often than not, ended up catching the fish not quite right.

We lost patience and returned to the ongoing show at the rookery. Here I was being photo-bombed by the great Blue Heron flying in from the left. I'm not complaining mind you.

Back at the table, manners are forgotten as these herons fight each other for lunch. Note one chick has its beak over Mom's beak, while the other is planning a new attack.

The white egret, in the lower left, is just calmly sitting on the eggs, likely dreading the time when the young ones will fight for food and survival.

This is an overview of about half the rookery. Note the Purple Martin houses in the background. The martins were not there yet, but I'll bet that will be a noisy area soon enough.

And yet again, an elusive little green heron, stalking as usual. I have always found it difficult to photograph these birds, but over the last few days, I have been very lucky. 

Joan spotted this one about ten feet away, and he didn't mind posing for me.

I am pretty sure that this is Black Crowned Night Heron flying by. His white breeding head feather is trailing on the darker back feathers. What a day...

It was time for our lunch too, so we went to the very end of the road, where the food was very good. We ate outside on the picnic tables, listening to some pretty loud music of questionable value. Some would say it was gaud-awful. but I digress.

The 'artist' made his own string instruments from cigar boxes, a hockey stick, and other contraptions. That alone should have been enough to shy us away, but the high volume through damaged speakers only served to distort things further...

We did not buy the 'T' shirt, or the CD.

This was just one of many live oaks well decorated with Spanish moss and other air plants; quite spooky looking...

And finally, no adventure would be complete without an after lunch game of croquet. Unfortunately, we did not have our whites, so we couldn't join in.

The chap in the long pants is from England and is apparently one of the world's best croquet players.  He is holding a small teaching seminar of the finer points of the game.

I guess we might look into this when we get older...