Yellow-crowned Night Heron

This is a superficially similar heron to the green heron from yesterday.  It is an immature yellow-crowned night heron.  They are roughly the same size.  This one had come up with a "mudbug" or crayfish.  And what a crayfish!  I don't think I have ever seen one bigger except for one time when my wife caught one at Haynes point in Washington while we were fishing.

The heron eventually swallowed the crayfish whole.  It must have an iron digestive system!

I think I posted this photo before.  I don't particularly like the look of the bird, but I thought the way the camera rendered the background was pretty cool.  There were a lot of puddles and water reflecting shards of light.

These photos were all taken at a national park in Washington dedicated to water lilies.  They are at the peak of bloom right now and the huge lotus are particularly stunning.  I was setting up to film a lily and didn't notice this heron on a branch right above my head preening.

The odd thing about yellow-crowned night herons is I have seen a lot of them, but they have always been sub-adults!  I have never seen an adult YCNH.  They call them night herons for a reason, and I guess they are nocturnal, but what I wonder is why the young ones are not.  I have always seen them in the day time.

This is what the lotus look like.  They are gorgeous, standing five or six feet high with blossoms as big as your head.  The place is called Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens for anyone locally who is interested.

Green Heron

Green herons are my idea of what a heron should look like. Notice how well it blends in with it's habitat.  If I didn't know where it was, I probably wouldn't have seen it here in a classic stance. It was hunting minnows and would dive in, fish jumping in all directions.  I love the over-sized feet, apparently designed to easily cling to stumps like this. 

Here is a different one in another environment where it would be hard to spot.  They move along faster than a great blue heron when they hunt, but they are still stealthy.

It wasn't long before it captured a meal.  I'm not sure what kind of fish that is.  I am not familiar with the markings on it's side. I don't think it is a catfish, but I may be wrong.  The heron had a lot of trouble swallowing it, I know that.

The heron looked like it was through swallowing it two or three times, then hocked it up and tried it again.

Eventually though, it managed to keep it down and then it was off to find some more.

Odd Man Out

The two most dominant osprey chicks hang together a lot of the time, sitting in a favored sycamore tree close to the nest (in case mom or dad come home with a fish).  The runt usually sits by itself in the nest.

The other day, the runt got tired of sitting alone and wanted to perch with it's siblings so it flew over to the tree and came in as though it was going to land.  The other two didn't even flinch, in fact, they didn't even look at it, but ignored it as if thinking, "Maybe if I ignore him, he'll go away."

As it flew closer, there was still no reaction or recognition on the part of the two. It was as though it was not even there.

Many species of birds will bump another bird off a perch simply by descending on it like it is going to land, which causes the perched bird to yield the perch and fly off.  That didn't happen here.  As it dropped down to the branch, neither moved, so it took back to the air again.

It was only at this point that the two on the branch finally acted like there was another bird around and looked up at it's sibling. 

They continued to watch it while it circled around and returned to the nest box. It just struck me as comical the way they now seemed keenly interested in what it was doing.

Its A Little Late for That!

A great blue heron flew into a tree near me on the shoreline the other day.  It always seems odd to me to see these large birds in trees and I watched it for a while.  It would look around and then it would look straight up into the tree for quite some time.  Then it would repeat the process of looking around, then straight up.

I had never seen one do this, so I continued to watch.

After a few minutes it moved further down the tree and tried to break off a branch, but couldn't get to it very well, so it very carefully moved around to the other side where it was able to snap it off. 

It took quite some time to position it in it's mouth so that it wouldn't trip on it, then moved higher in the tree.

At this point, my attention was drawn away by something else that was going on and when I looked back, I couldn't see the heron.

A little bit later, I looked and the heron was returning from further up the tree where I am pretty sure it placed the branch.

This is August and nesting season is well past, so what was it doing with the stick?  I'm pretty sure it placed it with the idea of building a nest.  GBH's do nest in trees, building nests of sticks, usually in a colony of many birds.  Maybe it was a down payment on a nest for next year. I'm certainly going to keep that spot in mind next spring.  To be continued...

To Kill an Osprey II

Here are some more photos of chick #1 chasing chick #3 all over creation.  Don't think this is going on continuously because it is not.  But it happens a couple times a day.

To kill an Osprey

If you have been able to watch any birds at a young age, you have no doubt noticed how fierce is the competition for food.  There is no deferring to another bird; it is all me, me, me and mine, mine, mine.  Get yours some place else.

I have been surprised by the unprovoked attempts of the alpha osprey chick to drive off the #3 chick. I took these a few days ago and, unfortunately, they were flying with the sun right behind them.  That means the contrast between the sky and the birds is so great detail cannot be rendered in both, so the birds ended up as silhouettes.  That turns out not to be so bad as it makes certain things stand out.

The lowered talons of the alpha bird highlights it's serious desire to do the other bird harm.  The #3 bird (in the lead) has quickly developed flight skills as good as the sibling, so it is not a done deal.  This third one is always odd man out.  The other two can often be seen together, but this one is always by itself.

An Imperceptible Change

Seasons change so imperceptibly, day by day, you hardly notice the change, until one day you realize how much it different things look.  These photos were all taken in the past week or so. Almost as soon as the marsh plants have greened and grown, they begin their downward spiral to the browns of fall.  At one point, they morph through a yellowish phase which can be very prominent if the light is right as is the case in these pictures.

I thought you might like to see how beautiful it can be down at the river.  If you look carefully at the top of the sycamore tree center right, you will see an eagle sitting on a favorite perch.

The white flowers are the original marsh mallows which bloom between late July and mid August.

Here, one of the osprey chicks is practicing it's moves pretending to catch a fish.  The marsh behind it is filled with birds I have never filmed.  Red-winged blackbirds nest there as well as Canada geese, but so do many other birds that I cannot even guess what they are from their calls.  Sound carries a long ways over water and I'll often hear owls hooting in the trees in the background.

This always appears to be a point in the river, but in actuality it is simply a bend in the river.  The place where I stand is the straight part of an oxbow in the river.  In the first picture, the river is close to the far shore, then turns toward where I stand through a straight section of maybe a quarter mile before it swings back to the far shore in the Fourth photo.

I have taken these photos many times before, but I am always struck by the lighting and cannot resist the urge to take them again.