An Anhinga spreads its wings to dry on a partially submerged log, showing the silver patterning across its flight feathers. 🪶

📍 Brazos Bend State Park, Needville, TX
📸 Canon EOS R7 + RF200-800mm

#Anhinga #Birds #BirdPhotography #WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #TexasBirds #TexasWildlife

Perched Above Still Water

This anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) perched quietly on a dead tree in a pond in west‑central Georgia. I almost missed it because of how well it blended into its surroundings.

Step into a world where even the smallest moments—like the glint in a bird's eye—tell their own story.

https://swede1952-photographs.pixels.com

#photo #photography #photographer #photographylovers #wildlife #nature #bird #birds #birding #birdwatching #birdphotography #anhinga

POV: anhinga side-eye

#birder #anhinga #BirdsOfMastodon #maryland

Have you ever seen a bird with neon blue eyes? 🪶 This male Anhinga is flaunting his wild breeding plumage and crest.

📍 @houstonaudubon Smith Oaks Rookery, High Island, TX
🗓️ Apr 17, 2026 | 🕒 1:12 PM
📸 @canonusa EOS R6 Mark III + RF 200-800 + 1.4x
⚙️ 1120mm | f/13 | 1/200 | ISO 4935

#Anhinga #BirdWatching #Wildlife #NatureVideo #Canon #MastodonNatureCommunity #MastodonBirds

5 Poems by Laurie Kuntz

Women At Fifty

We’re likened to flowers–
delphinium, crocus, forsythia,
names that color the raspy throat of time,
fill the air with familiar gray tones,

but consider the hydrangea
kindred to diminished hues of November
it shutters from wine to teal till petals
gleam like burnt sapphires, pearls, bronze.

Pansies, petunias, zinnias
in their crimson dresses
tear in October’s rush of wind

the hydrangea remains steadfast
bleached from wind and time, its colors turn
from lavender to sea-shades,

turn from summer’s incense
to the perch of night with distant
sounds of bells and strength of chimes.

First published in Live Encounters

~~

Portulaca In Shadow

August in L.A.

a litany of the familiar,
delphinium, dianthus, columbine,
each flower, a vise on the redolent pocket of time,

You seek deliverance
among red-palmed petals of portulaca,
transplanted from a garden in Vietnam,
now wrapped tight in evening’s bud.

What grows in L.A.

is common to both lands
and you listen for sounds of Asian gardens–
bamboo creaking in an October wind,

bike wheels on gravel,
the clink of a teaspoon
against the cobalt rim of china
and in high grass, feline declarations.

But, here, in L.A.

under the drone of imminent freeways
the purple vine of morning glory
chokes the trellis and the memory

of an egret’s call ascending
from rice fields pales
against the clamor of the angel’s city.

An unspeakable loneliness
claims your life as the past
clenches shut, like portulaca in shadow.

First published in Live Encounters

~~

Anhinga Drying Her Wings

Where has she flown
for the need to stop
on a lily pad and spread
wet-tipped wings
under the ebb of day?
What venture caused
her to dive into this lagoon
black with its endless bottom?
Who are we, passersby,
to disturb her stance
on reeds fragile to sight
and thought of these steps
we both make on sandy roads?
Under waning suns
winged and footed journeys
are beginning anew
and ending, marked
with the coming
of first snow and last rose.

First published in Chameleon Chimera Anthology of Florida Poets and Poetry Breakfast

~~

Elegy For the Face in the Mirror

In that gilded mirror
I practiced my countenance,
lifted sagging skin to reach
the once prominent cheekbones
which have sunk with every disappointment
or loss of someone who once cupped my face
into welcoming hands and held my tentative smile
till it became my calling.
That mirror, which hung on a fresh paint of pink
has cracked, I don’t know when or how–
Perhaps my angry brush stroke hit its shine of glass,
or was it a wet towel flung at a glaring reflection,
that stare I no longer wanted.
But today the face has softened
to a gentle frown of forgiveness,
and in an easy stretch of time,
I mourn for who I no longer
see in cracked glass,
from many splintered angles
no one stares back at me.

~~

Between

If our lives were lived in a straight line
like holding ends of a jump rope–
one turner madness, the other magic,
we would learn to rise in rhythm
with each arc of the rope and all that happens
in a moment of becoming airborne.

Between the landing and next jump
are the daily interactions that prove us human:

The nod of passing hikers scaling an uphill trail,
the placing of coins in a palm by the shopkeeper
after asking how your elderly mother is doing,
a screen door held open or gently shut
after shared cups of chamomile tea on a rainy day,
the manicurist who shapes your nails into a spring color palette,
A pitanga bush overhanging the bridge,
never failing to drop its red dappled berries into the lap of April.

Each handshake, hug, and embrace
is a life in the telling, stories that will end
in a skip, jump, and final landing
between madness and magic.

First published in One Art

Copyright © 2026 Laurie Kuntz
All Rights Reserved

"Keep your feathers dry!" - Anhinga

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4C0cOrocu0

"Dance like an Anhinga" - AKA the "snake bird". Diving and swimming pro. But...

Without oil in its feathers to waterproof, once wet, it is weighed down, and no more flying until dry.

So... it' sunning time. Like this here.

Similar to solar cells and many humans, Anhingas appreciate a nice sunny day.

#Birds #Nature #Photography #Fenfotos #Anhinga #NaturePhotography

Homage to spring: Treetop Trio

https://flic.kr/p/2s3HSQu

A singing #anhinga, cormorant, & roseate spoonbill.

This was a "lost photo", taken just as our beloved Google+ was extinguished (4/19)

I never added this to my long-time albums on Flickr, which I am now grateful for having had, as it remained up & running. Many more #birds & #nature photos "there" - along with albums of travel #photography

Links to all that from this Flickr page, where I've finally added this favorite.

Happy Spring!

Ready for her closeup.

#MarshMadness #anhinga #birds #birding #FemaleBirds #AirlieGardens #nature #NaturePhotography #SolaceInNature #creationstruck #GoneToCarolinaInMyMind