Another bird fashion show at Gatorland

Great egret flying by.

Great egret landing on an alligator.

For some reason the birds like to go gator surfing. Actually, you can feed the alligators hot dogs. Birds like to try and steal the dogs from the alligators when they fall in the water. It's a risky meal for the birds.

Cattle egret and friend.

Great egret preening.

I made my last trip over to Gatorland in Orlando in early May. Things will start winding down there at the bird rookery. By now there are mostly cattle egrets with babies. The great egret babies are all grown up and the tricolored heron babies are growing up fast. It's still a great place to get easy bird pictures. The birds pose and are use to having people around. This was my 3rd spring to shoot pictures there. The first year I was clueless. I had bought my first DSLR a couple of months earlier and was just learning how to use it. I didn't realize you could use flash in the shade. I thought flash was just for indoors. The next spring I knew a teeny bit more and I went to a great Flickr meet-up there. Everyone was nice and helpful with tips. This spring I made 3 visits, trying to get different bird babies being hatched. Soon the new zipline ride will open and it will be interesting to see if it has an impact on the birds next spring. The zipline runs across one end (the end where the birds don't nest for some reason) of the big alligator lake and along side of it. The birds may be totally oblivious to it. The park has been building it all spring and I think it opens soon. So, if you want to zipline over alligators then head to Gatorland.