My friend Mike and I were told about a feeding frenzy in one of the back bays.  Feeding frenzies happen when plenty of fish appear followed by lots of birds.  It is a wild scene (pun intended) that can last up to an hour with birds flying every which way.  In this particular instance there were 30 or more birds; almost all white and mostly consisiting of three species: The Snowy Egret, Great Egret, and American White Pelican.

The Snowy Egret

The smallest of the white birds is the Snowy Egret.  Here's a shot of one standing on the railing of a bridge:

Snowy Egrets are generally quite animated.  This one had an itch that needed scratching:

And apparently it had something to say afterwards:

When angered or aroused, Snowys display with raised feathers on their crown as shown above.  They are quite territorial; at times chasing away a competitor with frequent little skirmishes.  Aside from their differences in size, Snowy Egrets can be distinguished from their cousin "The Great Egret" by their yellow feet.  

The Great Egret

In this next image of a Great Egret, the size difference between it and a Snowy Egret becomes apparent. Note,too, its black feet:

Here's a little different view of a Great Egret that really emphasizes the shape of its wings:

Neither the Snowy nor the Great Egret can swim!  They are waders and must, by necessity, catch their food in shallow water.  In the next image, the Great Egret caught a fish by standing totally still and waiting for the fish to swim near.  Having caught it, the Great Egret will attempt to flip the fish length-wise in its beak and swallow it alive and whole.  It is a pretty clever trick!

The American White Pelican

On the other hand, Pelicans (all varieties) are excellent swimmers and, as a result, are not restricted to looking for fish along the banks.  Brown Pelicans (not shown in this post) catch fish by spotting them from the air and crash diving from as high as 30 or 40 feet into the water.  It  is spectacular to watch them perform these amazing dives.  

The much larger American White Pelicans shown in this post are too big for this kind of hunting.  They "fish" by slowly swimming as a group herding their prey into a small area.  In this next image, the group has formed a circle and have begun to feed on the fish inside it. 

Since they can not swim, the egrets wait on the side lines and hope the pelicans will "push" fish to the shoreline where they can snap them up. They must play a waiting game to take advantage of the Pelicans "herding" activity:

In this shot, you can see the Pelicans near the shore's edge and both Snowy and Great Egrets staring intently at the water:

It looks rather calm ... until you pan left:

And, two Snowy Egrets having a little squabble about who has a right to be in this particular spot:

In this particular feeding, there weren't any Brown Pelicans participating nor any of the hundreds of Cormorants that usually show up.  It was White Bird feeding time!

Thanks for looking!

Adam