I stop to think on days like today (as TS Ophelia rains and blows on Delmarva) how animals in the wild get through stretches of bad weather. Heavy rain and strong wind is the order of the day here today and likely tomorrow as well. Most mammals are probably hunkered down to wait it out but coastal birds don’t seem to have the same behavior. We watched a large number of egrets and ibises in the marsh behind our house this morning, gathered in the bad weather taking advantage of high water level in the marsh that was apparently full of fish to eat judging by the behavior of the birds. This afternoon I saw brown pelicans weathering the storm in a creek mouth near Delaware Bay. They faced the wind sitting on the water and that, combined with the current produced by the tide rising into the creek, caused them to drift into the creek and toward a bridge which they apparently did not like. They drifted, flew into the wind, landed on the water, drifted, flew, landed… again and again and again. Gulls. on the other hand, chose to hunt the marsh shallows for, taking advantage of a strong headwind that allowed these skillful fliers to basically hover over their prey. Fun photographing all of this in between downpours, but occasionally getting very wet.
