I was surprised to see three Great Egrets on the rail when I walked through the covered bridge at the boardwalk entrance. I stopped and did not scare them away. I slowly backed away from the entrance and walked to the edge of the Landing House to view the boardwalk where I saw more Great Egrets! Two more Great Egrets were hunting at the feeding place; and one Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron stood near the edge of the rail with three Great Egrets. All were busily grooming as if they had a good breakfast. It was 6:55 a.m. and they were already finished with their breakfast.
Then, one Great Egret flew up to a tree located on the other side of the wetland and the bird started grooming. The tree was the territory tree of a Great Egret last summer; I instantly figured that this was the same bird. The bird brought other Great Egrets for breakfast. I was happy and wished that all the Egrets would stay in the wetland.
Regrettably, after all the Great Egrets had groomed and rested, one by one, they flew up and away toward the river. I was wishing that the resident Great Egret would remain, but the bird flew up from that territory tree and the followed after the others. I saw the Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron watching the Great Egrets flying away, but the bird remained on the rail.
I finally went back to the boardwalk to see the Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron. At once, I noticed that I was seeing a Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron that I did not recognize. Its feathers and beak were not as shiny and fresh as the young Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron, but it looked younger than the older Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron that I had seen in front of the Texas Rivers Center. The whiteness of the feathers on its cheeks and top of its head were much whiter than that of the older Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron. Also, the young Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron did not have a dot on the white forehead feathers, but I saw a single blackish mark on the right side of the forehead, and it had short blackish occipital plumes. Based on these markings, I identified a third Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron in this lake.
The one dot Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron saw something and flew down to the dead floating tree trunk, and caught a big crayfish in a lightning strike. It walked hurriedly behind the tall grass with the crayfish between in its beak.
While I was waiting for the Yellow-Crowned-Night Heron to come out from the grass I noticed the Water Horsetails that were transplanted last summer. The plants are protected in eleven individual meshed wire enclosures at the left side of boardwalk entrance, the favorite hunting place for the Yellow-Crowned-Night Herons and Nutrias, but they are not adapting well.
Last Friday morning, I saw that a bunch of Cattails had been chewed down, near the boardwalk exit. Close to the root of the leaves, the white parts of the stems were chopped several inches. This morning, I saw a big Nutria deliciously munching on a Cattail leaf. I saw more Cattails floating on the water surface on both sides of the boardwalk exit and more pieces of chopped white stems on the right side of the exit. It was painful to see the damage to the Cattails since they don’t grow like Algae or Water Hyacinths.
I stopped at the site where the Red-Shouldered Hawk dined on crayfish yesterday morning. There was only one claw on the grass and many ants were busily working on it. Where did the other claw go?
The flowers of the Century Plant are growing so fast. That fast growing pistils even at the top layers of the branches were easily viewed when I was walking toward the Glass Bottom Boat dock.
And, I saw the young Red-Shouldered Hawk perched on the electric line just above the Century Plant. The two together were a beautiful sight. I knew that it was the young Red-Shouldered Hawk as the Thrusher like small bird was perched facing the hawk on the next electric line. I was glad that the small bird was not crying this time.
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