This brilliant white bird is wading in the shallows looking for food. At a glance, that could be a tiny twig or a dangling bit of vegetation in its mouth, but look more carefully - it's a damselfly.

They are incredibly graceful birds in the air, yet they can turn on a dime and duck out of your picture as you take it.

Sometimes they perch conveniently on something nearby, like this rail, and pause briefly while we admire them. Mostly though, I see them wading in the wetlands like this one standing in the water lettuce.

Here is a slightly larger, if not too much better, view. This Snowy Egret is eating a damselfly. Snowy Egrets have bright yellow feet, and legs that are mostly black with a yellow stripe up the back. They also have a bit of yellow where their beak meets their eyes; the remainder of their beak is black.

Like a turtle, they can pull their head in as this white puffball of a bird has, or extend it in a lightning fast plunge into the water to grab prey.

Come see my newer photographs on Snowy Egrets Page Two; I found eggs!