As the name suggests, you will see lots of anhingas and in one section, come very close to their nests. The anhinga is mostly a black bird with a beautiful black and white feather pattern on its wings. The difference between the male and female markings is that the female has a silvery head and neck.
Nicknamed the snake bird, the anhinga when swimming often only has its head and neck above water thus looking like a snake. It is easy to confuse in the water with a cormorant which is similar in shape and swims in much the same fashion but is smaller than the anhinga. Both are abundant on the Anhinga trail.
Once the anhinga gets out of the water, it usually finds a spot to roost and then spreads its wings to dry them off. Some of the trees almost look like a line of laundry hanging out to dry.
Baby Anhingas in nest |
"Teenaged" Anhingas |
There were not so many vultures on the second visit and I wondered if maybe the migration north had begun. And a very excited park ranger made sure to point out that there was a roseate spoonbill at the lookout on one end of the trail. We didn't tell her we had seen it a few weeks earlier. This time however, the spoonbill was even pinker than before. It's coloring resembles a flamingo and some tourists (although I don't see how) confuse it with a flamingo. It's legs are not nearly as long and then there's that bill that they use to filter out food bits from the water.
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