This time in the season adult Herons can leave larger young alone and go out hunting. Things happen, but most of the time if a chick can walk around the nest they can defend it.
I get less Heron in flight shots now, but the Egrets keep us busy.
It’s time for the next phase in rookeries, the smaller wading birds.
This is a Black-crowned Night Heron who blew by heading out to one of the islands. A few were moving around so I was prepared, at least thinking about, a fly by.
Night Herons like to nest in the thick palms with plenty of cover. They still want the protection of a rookery, but more dense. This makes it harder to get many photographs since they are hidden.
In the last image above you can see part of the Egret rookery as he flew past.
These birds are fairly hard to catch in flight so I was surprised to get three images. I’m happy with one, this many is a bonus for me.
Crossing over to a marsh we found…no water.
Best viewed large.
I was not walking out for a closer shot.
The shrinking water condensed all the fish into a very small area.
My guess is in an hour there were no fish.
Speaking with the head ranger we found the water was lowered, trunks and water flow blocked, to allow the Widgeon Grass seeds to finish sprouting. In a few days the seed will be out and the marsh opened up to water. The water will spread the seed all through the area, basically planting the wild grasses to support the wildlife.
Pretty clever.
The water level is controlled using the same ‘trunk’ methods from the last 300 years. The first trunks here were setup by enslaved people from Barbados and West Africa for rice growth.
I guess if I was sitting out there all day I would be too.
Great Blue Heron.
Most of the in flight shots lately have been Great Egret. They are the most active at this point.
However the Herons do come and go, even repair the nests.
This Heron went to the reeds, a favorite for everybody out here.
I’m not sure what was needed but this is all he picked up.
He was sent off a few more times so perhaps this did not exactly fill the need.
The Heron snatched this little fish right in front of the Egret.
It was so fast the Snowy didn’t react at all.
Maybe it was so small (and it was tiny) the Snowy didn’t want to bother with it.
A capture of both adults and two young birds in the nest.
Best viewed large.
At this point it’s hard to get all together in one photograph. There’s constant movement, nest repairs, and hunting for food.
I knew given enough time these shots could be fun.
I needed time to change my angle and composition, but it worked.
Above a Tricolored Heron came by and perched on top of an old dead Cypress Tree. It’s always a nice image when they do little things like this.
It’s even better when there is more to the story, like above.
Right below the Tricolored was a Great Blue chick. Bigger than the guy up top, but this was all new to the youngster.
He shifted his eyes up, not moving much but he had that ‘OMG, What the…’ thing going on.
Eventually the Tricolored flew back to one of the islands but he did give the little guy an idea of the ‘new wide world’ around the rookery.
