ML97988181
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult, Unknown sex - X
Observation details
Spectacular bird and apparently also a spectacular record, only the second at Dry Tortugas National Park and the first to land, the rangers told us. Stunning coral-pink bird on the beach on the south (leeward) side of Bush Key and the isthmus between Garden and Bush. Extremely long neck held in S-curve; large, bent, black-tipped bill. Mantle lighter pink than rest of body. No leg bands nor wing tags as far as we could tell. Long, long, spindly legs with knobby “ankle” joint. Black primaries occasionally visible. The bird wasn’t on the beach when I checked it at sunrise, but later in the morning, a birder from Jacksonville alerted us to its presence after having been alerted to it by other campers or boaters. The bird moved up and down the beach the rest if the day, standing still for long periods of time, and by the time the Yankee Freedom left just before 3:00, it had moved far down toward Long Key and was barely visible through the heat shimmer, an bright pink phantasm. (Postscript: Sadly, the bird was reported to have died after a few days on the key: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article211247974.html)
Technical information
- Model
- NIKON D7100
- Lens
- 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6
- ISO
- 200
- Focal length
- 300 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/7.1
- Shutter speed
- 1/3200 sec
- Dimensions
- 2080 pixels x 1387 pixels
- Original file size
- 896.7 KB