Hold still, dadgummit!
Stop fighting!Copyright 2009 Lydia Hinshaw
HOMOSASSA SPRINGS, FL -- The Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park is a former roadside tourist attraction purchased by the state and converted into a home and rehab facility for sick and injured manatees and other local animals.
When we, the taxpayers, bought the park in 1989, the sellers threw in a 29-year-old, 6,000 pound hippopotamus. The hippo, whose roots are in Africa, is a Californian, born in the San Diego Zoo. Now 49, he moved to Florida as a child, at age four.
My lens was too long to get the whole hippo into a frame, unless I shot the picture from maybe Ocala.
Anyhow, I prefer action shots when possible, and the hippo was sound asleep the whole time we were there.
The animals in my pictures are visitors rather than inmates at the Park. Prince Charming and I, along with several others humans, observed this bit of wildlife interaction from a bridge that is part of the trail through the park.
A cormorant, in the two pictures above, captured a fish that was likely too big for him to swallow. The bird gamely wrestled with the fish for several minutes, but ultimately could not hold onto his lunch.
A great blue heron saw opportunity splashing and landed nearby just about the time the cormorant lost his grip. The heron (below) grabbed the bleeding fish and took off with it, flying to the shallows on the other side of the bridge.
But what's a skinny-necked heron, built to eat minnow-sized animals, going to do with a fat fish? Not much. The heron dropped the fish, which disappeared.
On the bridge,we human spectators wondered if the fish could survive these multiple traumas -- lacerations, whiplash and flight.
We'll never know.
When we, the taxpayers, bought the park in 1989, the sellers threw in a 29-year-old, 6,000 pound hippopotamus. The hippo, whose roots are in Africa, is a Californian, born in the San Diego Zoo. Now 49, he moved to Florida as a child, at age four.
My lens was too long to get the whole hippo into a frame, unless I shot the picture from maybe Ocala.
Anyhow, I prefer action shots when possible, and the hippo was sound asleep the whole time we were there.
The animals in my pictures are visitors rather than inmates at the Park. Prince Charming and I, along with several others humans, observed this bit of wildlife interaction from a bridge that is part of the trail through the park.
A cormorant, in the two pictures above, captured a fish that was likely too big for him to swallow. The bird gamely wrestled with the fish for several minutes, but ultimately could not hold onto his lunch.
A great blue heron saw opportunity splashing and landed nearby just about the time the cormorant lost his grip. The heron (below) grabbed the bleeding fish and took off with it, flying to the shallows on the other side of the bridge.
But what's a skinny-necked heron, built to eat minnow-sized animals, going to do with a fat fish? Not much. The heron dropped the fish, which disappeared.
On the bridge,we human spectators wondered if the fish could survive these multiple traumas -- lacerations, whiplash and flight.
We'll never know.
Thief!
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