Posted by Angela McCain on March 20, 2012 at 9:34 AM
Several of you noted that the bird I posted wasn't banded. I have a lot of images. About half the birds I saw were banded.
This is a juvenile with banding and a radio transmitter. This image showed it best, but suffers from backlighting.
It is full frame. I guess because of all the tour boats, the birds were essentially oblivious to us. Most didn't even move or walked slowly near the water edge-not really away from us. Our guide got out of the boat and into the water or along the jetty (depending on the location) and pulled the boat to keep it quiet and smooth.
I only saw 4 fly and they were far away from us-so pretty sure they weren't flying from us.
The guide thought the ones flying were moving because another whooper family was too close. He was expecting an interaction (fight), but it didn't happen. The other group just left.
Posted by Nick Baldwin on March 20, 2012 at 2:00 PM
We have two over-winter visiting adults from the class of '09 Operation Migration, here in the Big Bend of Florida. You can see bands and transmitter.
Discussion
1 repliesThis is a juvenile with banding and a radio transmitter. This image showed it best, but suffers from backlighting.
It is full frame. I guess because of all the tour boats, the birds were essentially oblivious to us. Most didn't even move or walked slowly near the water edge-not really away from us. Our guide got out of the boat and into the water or along the jetty (depending on the location) and pulled the boat to keep it quiet and smooth.
I only saw 4 fly and they were far away from us-so pretty sure they weren't flying from us.
The guide thought the ones flying were moving because another whooper family was too close. He was expecting an interaction (fight), but it didn't happen. The other group just left.