I was down on the Gulf Coast of Florida recently and I spent a fair amount of time shooting birds. I apologize for not keeping up with the blog while I was down there but to be honest I just wasn’t very motivated. But one morning that I was out I saw one of the most knock down, drag out fights that I have ever seen between two Anhingas. They are diving type water birds, very similar to the Cormorants that you see in our area. Click on the images to enlarge.
Who’s the baddest of them all???
These two had been yapping at each other all morning but had been keeping their distance. Until all of a sudden they both agreed it was time to settle their differences and it was on!!!
These two were going right for the throat, and they weren’t messing around!
This continued for several minutes and they weren’t letting go!
You can see the beak of the lighter colored one sticking through the skin of the other.
I really thought that one of them was going to become Alligator food!
At this point they both fell off the log they were fighting on and crashed into the water. They squared off facing each other with wings flared out and I thought then that this would end it, one way or the other.
And then the strangest thing happened! They both flew back up onto the log and began………… mating????? What the Hell????? I know that birds can sometimes get a little rambunctious with their mating rituals but these two were beating the crap out of each other! I’d hate to see what happens when they are pissed off at each other!!!
A great but totally unexpected experience, that’s for sure! I will try to post more a soon as I can, because it was a terrific year for photography down there!!! Thanks for looking!
