NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SEGMENT

I looked out my office window this morning, and there was this ibis egret big white bird, so I went out and took a picture with my non-CrapCam™ camera:

After a minute he she the bird decided to boogie.

Comments

[AmerInParis]

Beautiful!

Am I first?

[Nurse Tammy]

Wait a minute... did Dave just give us the bird?

[Itsmereally]

Way cool.

[AmerInParis]

I checked Wiki and think s/he is an egret.

[Darren]

Is nice bird. but Denver has birds twice as good. your miami birds. are losers.

[Edgar Greenberg]

Definitely an egret, Dave. We have them where I come from.

[Reddsuss]

Egrets, I've had a few...

[ubetcha]

Nice job, Dave! Yep, it's an egret.

[ScooterRocky]

Beautiful shot Dave, lets just hope that he/she doesn't fly too close to Brian Urlacher.

[Amy]

Great photos Dave! Wish I had a view like that!

[Addicted to 24]

That is one of the small moments that make like beautiful.

[judi]

this is one of my favorite things about south florida. when i get up in the morning and go outside and there's a flock of ibis or egrets or whatever (smaller than this one) on my lawn, i just... smile.

[Schadeboy]

Wait...you have an office with a window? Man, I am definitely in the wrong profession!

[R. Cheney, The Bunker]

Now that looks delicious!

[«LabSpecimen»]

*snorks heartily at Reddsuss*

[Hammond Rye]

Is it wrong to bring up serving suggestions at a time like this?

[AmerInParis]

Someone possibly masquarading as Darwood* writes: "Is nice bird. but Denver has birds twice as good. your miami birds. are losers."

* Note the Bewitched flashback.

Well, I haven't noticed any exotic birds here in France. I do see large crows and magpies hanging out in the large cedar tree outside my window.

The most exotic bird I've seen is an escaped blue budgie that showed up on my balcony one day.

[bookbabie]

Double *snork* @ Reddsuss

[Beppie]

That is cool! We have them here, but I've only seen them rarely. How cool would it be to have a whole flock in your yard!

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Dave, you didn't get it pooping as it flew away!

Oh, wait, it's a white bird...no wonder.

[baligurl]

On the 4th of July, the geese leave the nearby golf course to escape the fireworks, and hide in our garage. It was funny, the first time.

[Booger Tancredo]

Nice view from the office, Dave!

But my view from Denver is bedder.

[Siouxie]

Great picture, Dave! I believe it's one of those rare Tancredo-do birds I mentioned the other day. It's indigenous in third-world countries.

[jon]

Beautiful birds, & quite tasty with a nice Cabernet... .

[woody everhard]

preserve the moment
choosing to forget for now
the bird has frog breath

does any species
regard me as beautiful
as i see this bird?

the feathers dazzling
nothing on me approaches
that white perfection

[Annie Where-but-here]

I didn't know Nichole Ritchie was in town.

[PirateBoy]

Suggestion: Give Denver the bird.

[Guin]

Very tropical-looking.

[mudstuffin]

whoops - forgot the moniker - but you knew it was me all along didn't you?

[crossgirl]

wonders when it'll put it's landing gear up.

[Punkin Poo]

I think that bird is a "Snowy White Tancredo Eater".

It lives on the meat of tiny brains. It must eat for 23 out of 24 hrs a day in order to get full.

[Siouxie]

um...that would be indigenous TO, not in.

I blame Darren.

[mudstuffin]

true stories: playing golf in california with my brother and some friends (some years ago) there was, standing at the edge of a pond near the tee, and beautiful white egret. i was fairly transfixed by the sight, while the others in my foursome were blase, and hardly noticed.

fast forward a year - playing golf back here in ohio with a trio of japanese businessmen - and a pure white (apparently albino) squirrel runs out into the fairway in front of us. again i stared at this apparition agog, but the others in my party didn't seem impressed at all.

my theory is that that the golfers in california are so used to seeing egrets around that the sight of one up-close was no big deal. this would mean that the japanese dudes were acting, not wanting to look like total tourist goobers by jumping up and down and pointing, thinking that snow-white squirrels must be common in ohio.

does this sound reasonable, or am i just weird?

[Siouxie]

do you really want an answer to that, mud??

[Meanie the Blue]

Mud, maybe your answer is here.

[marlodianne]

Elegant and camera shy. I admit, s/he looks exotic compared to than the crows that gather outside my workspace.

But those crows aren't just pretty, they're smart. And they like to eat.
That's why they're not grass blade thin like this albino.

When I watch a round crow trying to stuff a fourth piece of bread in his mouth so he can carry them all off to pig out in peace, he's practically family.

[sharoncville]

The only view outside of my office window is the Mexican restaurant and the gourmet gas station across the street. I do have a squirrel who is missing part of his tail who puts in occasional appearances. The girl in the office next to me and I have christened him "Stumpy." Too bad my cell phone is old and obsolete and doesn't have a crap cam...

[Davo]

I'll bet we do have birds in Denver. I just can't see them out of my window because of all the goddamned snow.

[Mother Abigail]

Marlodiane and AmerInParis:

Hate to worry you, but that is not just any crow outside your window. Ya'll come visit visit me anytime. I still make my own bisquits, ya know.

[Cookie]

Siouxie, I think we can blame Darren for almost everything for decades. He can replace Al Gore, who I am now blaming for everything, including global warming. :)

[Cookie]

oops, I also wanted to say what beautiful photos those are.

Note to self: Try to finish thought before pushing post

[Hammond Rye]

Thanks to Mother Abigail for the Stephen King reference. I would come visit, but I seem to be catching a cold.

[Annie Where-but-here]

mud - yes, snowy egrets are pretty common out here in SoCal, so they're no big deal. But you have to watch out -their tancredos are huge.

[Siouxie]

*smiles @ that SK reference as well*

and I agree, Cookie. Darren is the new Al Gore.

[mm]

We have egret, up here (north), too. They leave every October and return in April. They don't seem to mind living near developments, as long as there's a stream and some woodsy area for them. In "our" little park, every year we have at least one nest of egrets, one of great blue heron (looks much the same, but "blue"), and when we are lucky we have green heron, which are much smaller.

[Hammond Rye]

We have Canadian Geese in MD (you can tell by their little Mountie hats). You wouldn't believe the Tancredo they can leave on your car.

[mudstuffin]

meanie: i had heard that in parts of ohio there are more than a few white squirrels, but i've lived here a half century and have only seen the one. (way to google.)

[judi]

there are also black squirrels in ohio, where i went to school ;)

[SippiFoxHunter]

And worm breath......

[slyeyes]

Birdie boogie?

[qsman]

Further proof that Miami is a third-world country. In Denver I understand there are NO egrets

[dialtone]

Even though the egrets are common here in SoCal, they still take my breath away ! And how's this for a quaint mental picture:
We see them all the time in the L.A. River !!

If you've ever watched TV, (and I can tell none of you ever do), the L.A. "River" is the very deep concrete waterway where all the drag races/car chases are filmed)

[Boo Augustus]

All I have outside my office window is a dried up puddle and some dead leaves.

[Leetie]

{{{{Boo}}}}

[queensbee]

and wait till castro dies - that bird am gonna really dance!

[Siouxie]

queensbee, when castro dies, that bird's gonna get shot down from all the guns firing up in the air.

[CJrun]

LTTG. Great Egret. The turkeys up north [Fish and Wildlife] are trying to get us to call the Blue Heron 'The Southern Phase of the Great Egret,' like we're gonna do that. So, officially, they are both Ardea herodetus [sp? hey gimme a break, I'm Blogging from a Hooters, no books will ever be found here]

[How's Bayou]

'Tis a Great Egret (Ardea alba), for those who are interested in such things [jes' so happens that I am, since I'm an ornithologist an' all...]. Often called a "Greg" in birding shorthand (GReat EGret = GREG). 'Course Snowy Egrets are "Sneg" and so on and so forth. But I egress...

Nice shots there, Dave.

[Annie Where-but-here]

CJ - you moved the tortoises across the airport to a Hooters?!

[Sam Sanfillippo]

More disturbingly the effects of chlorinated solvents on the clientele would be unthinkable. Or would they?

[CJrun]

How's: that's fascinating. I know that during the push [late 80s early 90s] to straighten out common names, we were being asked to start using something like 'Southern Atlantic Phase of the Great Egret' for the blue heron and go with one latin name. That has been dropped and we now use alba for the Greg? Cool!

Annie, they are old enough, so it's OK.

[Jersey Girl]

re: Meanie's link at 12:12pm

"Squirrel Ethnography Paradigms" ?!?!?!?

WBAGNFARB

[JerseyGirl]

Esteemed blog colleagues CJ and How's,

I read recently that cattle egrets from Africa had arrived in Florida in the 1930s in the wake of a hurricane... Don't recall where I saw that. Is this for real, or for the birds?

As for the tortoises, you might want to keep them away from the Buffalo wings. A side of Zophoba morio might help them get over the trauma of moving.\

Gee, as I typed that, my companion reptile must have been reading my mine... he just crawled out of his lair!

Here, Fred*, have a Zophoba...

*name changed to protect the innocent

[Cheryl Howard]

Hmm, the birds seem really nice and simple in Florida.

This morning while drinking a cup of coffee a sparrow hawk napped a sparrow and proceeded to devour him less than 5 feet from my window. Contemplating this later I spied a Red Tail Hawk flying by with something suspiciously kitten like. Birds are a bit more carniverous in this neck of the woods.

But on the worst day its still better than Denver.

[CJrun]

CH, hope you got and enjoyed the hunting video. The raptors are raptors. We have them, but the topic was wading birds. Yours aren't as big as ours [they are HUGE!] and neener!

[Cookie]

I've just been reading some of the posts here, and I'm frightened.

*zips out*

[Stevie W]

Wat way late to this funny board but...

"Egrets, I've had a few...": lol to reddsuss.

Listen
Do you want to show us egrets?

[snif]

Your office has a window? Sweet....

[Lisa Bisa Fo Fisa]

Pretty bird! This is the one with the wobbly neck. I think they're funny.