Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron Close Up Experience

Close up juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron – Nikon D500, f9, 1/1250, ISO 400, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

Yesterday morning I drove up to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge to see what birds I could find to photograph and I am glad I did because I had a wonderful juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron close up experience. The young night heron was on the west side of a culvert standing on some rocks along with some American Coots, White-faced Ibis and another juvenile night heron.

Black-crowned Night Heron juvenile on a rock – Nikon D500, f9, 1/1250, ISO 250, -0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

The coots seemed to be resting and preening, the night herons resting or looking into the water for prey and the White-faced Ibis was looking for prey and displaying too, that is for another post though.

Because of the location I actually parked my vehicle, slowly opened my door and stepped out of my Jeep and laid my lens on my photo noodle while standing up to get these images. I felt that I had a better angle of light by doing so and since most of my body was hidden behind the door the birds were not alarmed by me at all.

Agitated juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron – Nikon D500, f9, 1/800, ISO 250, -0.3 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited

I felt I should explain that the Black-crowned Night Heron in this photo wasn’t agitated by me but was probably agitated by either the ibis squawking and display or by the other juvenile black-crowned that was walking towards this one.

I saw a car coming up behind me so I turned my Jeep on and slowly left the area and not one of the birds flew off.

The car that was behind me caught up with me and it was my friend Richard Pontius who had come down from Wyoming to photograph at Bear River MBR yesterday. We had a nice long chat before we finished going around the auto tour loop.

While on the auto tour loop I saw plenty of juvenile and adult Black-crowned Night Herons but I only photographed these at the culvert, the rest were far more skittish. I accidentally inhaled a midge yesterday and something stung or bit my left earlobe which has swelled up and is now painful but it was worth going yesterday to talk to a friend and have this close up experience with the juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron.

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Black-crowned Night Heron photos plus facts and information about this species.