Another photographer pointed us to this Snowy Egret yesterday. It did not close its beak the whole time either of us observed it. The photograph below shows something which may be its tongue spanning the upper and lower halves of the beak from within. We have tons of Snowy Egrets around here, and I've never seen one in this posture. I'm wondering if it's sick. I'm also wondering if this could have something to do with the enormous (to me) number of bird carcasses we saw as we walked the trails through this same area -- the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Hayward, California (on SF Bay). Without trying, we saw 8 to 12 carcasses, one of which was almost certainly a Great Blue Heron.
Just wondering what people make of this.
Egret Distressed 3 by Mark Featherstone, on Flickr