CLOSED: Anyone recognize these birds?

I was out in my backyard this morning and noticed these three birds circling (hunting) but can't figure out what they are. I took a couple of photo's but of course they were way up in the sky and all I have is a little digital camera but thought maybe someone would recognize the shape/size and have some ideas.

We get a lot of hawks at times and in spring time, swallow tailed kites but I can't figure out what these are. My first thought was some sort of vultures which we see eating road kill at times but they look too skinny to be vultures, LOL.

I am just real curious.

Lon legs like they have remind me of herons...do you have something like a Heron down there?

Here's another picture that I cropped to try to get a close up view of one of the birds ...

Hey Threeg ... yep, we have lots of different Heron's down here, but usually see them at the beach about a mile away .. I've never seen them circling like this.

oooo...I bet they're an Egret of some sort.

I checked my Florida Bird Books and never even thought about Egrets, LOL. We do have lots of Egrets down here and in the past I've seen a Great White Egret in my neighbor's yard. They usually are around water but my neighbor has no pond or pool so it must have found something else to it's liking in her backyard. There is a lake down the street though, could be they were circling to hunt down there!

Thanks! I bet you are right about them being Egrets. I'm going to look through my books again at the different Egrets listed!

They're Wood Storks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_Stork

gardenpom has a good picture of them flying, here:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/104/

I've been looking through one of my books and I think it's the Tricolored Heron (also known as Louisiana Heron and Blue Crane.)

I googled and found this picture of one that looks a lot like the birds I saw: http://www.naturegraphics.net/images/images/pa4047w-Tri-Colored-Heron.jpg

My bird book says this one is abundant through much of peninsular Florida.

Another possibility could be Sandhill Cranes which we have here too: http://highmountainmuse.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/sandhill-crane-0000191.jpg

I'm going to be watching to see if they appear again, and have binoculars close by next time!

Will mark this closed for now. Thanks Lee Ann for your help!

Claypa was closer than I was....

Oops, I missed Claypa's post! And, Yes ... Woodstork is exactly right!

Thanks Claypa! I would have never guessed woodstork. I don't recall ever seeing them in my part of Florida and I looked at them in my bird book but the photo's shown are of them standing and it didn't look right at all. Gardenpom's picture is wonderful and is an exact match to the birds I saw circling! Thanks for that link to her photo as well as the other link with information on these birds!

Sure! Herons fly with their neck kind of folded or doubled-up. pbase has lots of pictures if you need to compare different birds (or bugs, etc.). Birdfiles is coming along too, which is great.

http://www.pbase.com/jourdaj/image/76923140

http://www.pbase.com/dadas115/tricolored_heron

Ditto to Wood Storks

Resin