Smokey skies and a Great Blue Heron in flight
On a clear day this Great Blue Heron image would have shown the Promontory Mountains in the distant background instead of the dull gray seen here.
On a clear day this Great Blue Heron image would have shown the Promontory Mountains in the distant background instead of the dull gray seen here.
In my post yesterday I mentioned that the Snowy Egrets that I photographed at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge were avoiding a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron, this is that heron.
I headed up to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge yesterday morning and I am very glad I did because of the wonderful birds I saw.
I picked this Great Blue Heron image to post today because when I took the photo it was bright and sunny.
Maybe when the weather clears tomorrow I'll be able to get back out Farmington Bay to photograph more birds.
Photographing this bird brought back memories of a day I spotted a Great Blue Heron struggling because it was caught in a trotline in the Chattahoochee River in Georgia
So, is this the year that the Grinch stole winter?
As common as Great Blue Herons are throughout North America I am always happy to photograph these prehistoric looking birds.
Last December I photographed this Great Blue Heron as it hunkered down against the brutal cold at the edge of the water in a marsh.
Just a simple Tricolored Heron image this morning that I created at Fort De Soto County Park in March of 2009.
Tricolored Herons are smaller than Great Blue Herons and larger than Snowy Egrets and all three of these wading birds hunt in many of the same locations along the Gulf Coast.
This Great Blue Heron landed briefly on a willow that was along the road at Farmington Bay but before I could get my exposure set correctly it took flight.
I missed the Little Blue Heron in Utah but I have fond memories of the day I photographed this one as the sun began to set over the Gulf of Mexico.
Yesterday I focused on a few wading birds I saw at Glover Pond near the Great Salt Lake Nature Center and that include Great Blue Herons and White-faced Ibis.
I believe that even without what some may consider "the perfect head angle" that we can create interesting and compelling avian images.
Tricolored Herons use many foraging behaviors to obtain their prey including walking quickly then crouching before stabbing their prey.
Great Blue Herons are wading birds that I photographed quite often at Fort De Soto County Park's north beach while I lived in Florida.
These Great Blue Heron photos were taken of the same bird, photographed at same location on the same day just one minute apart.
In January in Florida the Great Blue Herons are already going into breeding plumage and have begun courtship displays and have started building their nests.
It might look like this Great Blue Heron is hacking up some type of fluid seen in between and to the left of its bill but that is actually a hunk of ice attached to the heron's breast feathers.
Great Blue Herons are year round residents at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area here in northern Utah which means they deal with bitter cold, snow covered ground and icy water.
Back in March of 2009 while I was photographing a Great Blue Heron on the north beach of Fort De Soto County Park in Florida a Great Egret flew in and walked close to the Great Blue Heron and me.
This image of a Tricolored Heron perched in White Mangroves happens to be the first photo that I had taken of a this species that I was very happy with.
One December morning in 2008 I was sitting in the sand at Fort De Soto County Park's north beach in Florida when a Great Blue Heron came up and perched on a driftwood stump that had washed up onto the shore.
One morning in 2008 I photographed this Green Heron at Sawgrass Lake Park in Pinellas County, Florida as it perched and preened on broken branch that was laying in the water.
In Florida I found it easy to get close up images of Great Blue Herons because quite often they are used to the presence of humans but here in Utah that isn't the case and Great Blue Herons are sort of skittish.
I spotted this Black-crowned Night Heron that was almost hidden by the vegetation but as soon as we stopped it darted towards some open water in foraging mode.
I was digging through my image files yesterday and came across a series of Tricolored Heron images that I had never edited from a May morning in 2009 when I was photographing birds at Fort De Soto's north beach.
Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron Stalking prey at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah
I actually like the backgrounds in each of these images, all of them show the habitat that Tricolored Herons might be found in and highlight the birds too.