Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron numbers are on the rise at Fernhill Wetlands. The images above are a sampling of some that I saw last Sunday during my visit.

Great Blue Heron

I usually post a Great Blue Heron about once month. They're big, pretty birds and you can get pretty close to them at RNWR on the auto tour. They haven't been as numerous at RNWR as they were last Autumn, but I usually get at least one opportunity to get some nice shots of them during each visit.

The Heron vs. The Snake

Just before I reached the end of the auto tour at RNWR on Friday I noticed a Great Blue Heron to my right. A snake was dangling from its bill. I've watched Great Blue Herona catch fish and rodents, but this was the first time I had seen one with a snake.
The snake, however, wasn't going to give up on life as easily as the fish or rodents as it located a reed with its tail and wrapped it around it as tightly as it could.
The Heron pulled repeatedly as hard as it could, but the snake was not giving in.
After a minute or so of pulling, the reed finally gave in and snapped.
The Heron, thinking it had succeeded, tried to swallow the snake, but the snake still had a hold of the reed. Since the reed was at a right angle to the snake, it blocked the last bit of the snake from sliding down the Heron's throat.
The Heron continued to work at swallowing the snake, maneuvering the reed around to the front of its bill.
And around to the opposite side of its bill, slowly working the snakes grasp further down the reed.
Until the snake finally lost its battle, the reed fell to the ground and the Heron swallowed the snake down. I wonder what it feels like to have a snake wiggling around in your stomach? :-)
To watch a video of a similar experience, check out this YouTube video taken by local photographer Dennis Davenport.

Great Blue Heron - Poised to Strike

This Great Blue Heron held this pose the whole time I was taking pictures of the banded Canada Geese. I expected it to pluck a rodent off the ground at some point, but after 15 minutes I gave up and moved on. :-)

Great Blue Heron

I finally got out birding yesterday afternoon. It's been over a week and I was getting antsy.
I wasn't quite sure where to go so I thought I'd try Harrington Road one more time. I struck out on the Prairie Falcon again, but I did see more Acorn Woodpeckers.
After that I spent some time at Fernhill Wetlands. On my last leg on the way back to the parking lot, I came across this Great Blue Heron sitting on the railing of one of the control valves. It was intent on staying put and allowed me to take a bunch of close pictures. I haven't gone through many of them yet, but this one jumped out at me so I decided to post it.

Great Blue Heron - Juvenile

I've posted several images of Great Blue Herons over the past nine months, but I've never posted one of a juvenile. I haven't seen very many, but I realized this past autumn that a few were juveniles.
Both of the images above were taken at RNWR, but on different days. The top image of a juvenile was taken on November 26, while the bottom image of an adult was taken on December 8.
As you can see, the juvenile is missing the long, shaggy feathers on its back and lower neck. It also has a speckled neck instead of the silky gray-blue of the adult and overall its coloration is not as well defined. Although it is hard to tell from the angle in the image, Sibley points out that the crown of the juvenile is dark compared to the white crown of the adult.

Great Blue Heron

Every camera lens seems to have its own characteristics. Some positive, others negative. I think I've discovered more of the negative characteristics with the 600mm lens than the positive. Many pictures that looked great in the viewfinder ended up being very soft in actuality. Different things are at play I think. Since it has such high magnification, the need for a very still camera and fast shutter speeds are essential.
In addition to the lens, I rented a tripod and a Wimberley gimbal head. This is a pretty stable system, but I found that with the high winds at the coast, it was hard to keep it rock solid.
While it was sunny on Friday, today was a cloudy day and this results in slower shutter speeds.
One thing I forgot is that most lenses are sharper if you close the aperture a stop or two. My 70 - 300mm doesn't seem to exhibit this much, but I think this lens does. I'll try setting the camera for aperture priority tomorrow and see if that improves the results.
When things are all working though, it does a great job. I took this picture of a Great Blue Heron's head at RNWR today. This is full frame as the bird was just off the road and with the lens' magnification, this is all I could fit in the frame. Turned out quite nice.
This is also my first post using Lightroom3. It has a bit of a learning curve, but I think it will provide better results than Pixelmator.

Great Blue Heron - Up Close

It's not uncommon to be able to drive right past a Great Blue Heron standing along side the road on the auto tour at RNWR. (I seem to be posting a lot from there here lately. I guess it says something about the weather we've been having) Such was the case with this one. It posed very nicely for me.
As I was taking pictures of it standing all picturesque, I recalled a recent post by Nature Nut of the feet of a Great Blue Heron and decided to take some shots of both its head and legs. Notice that the toe in the foreground appears to be missing its claw.
Great Blue's are quite common, but I never get tired of taking pictures of them as they are very elegant and interesting.

Great Blue Heron - Ritual

Taken from the west shelter at Fernhill Wetlands, these two Great Blue Herons appear to be performing some type of ritual. I would assume a mating ritual, but it seems a little early as these pictures were taken on November 7th. They started out by pointing their heads skyward and slowly moving about. Eventually they started opening their wings and ruffling their feathers on their back.

Great Blue Heron

Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge is the only place that I regularly see Great Blue Herons hunting for food on land instead of in water. The Heron above was quite close to the road on the Auto Tour and had a bead on something. It suddenly thrust its bill into the ground and pulled out a rodent. It swallowed it down quickly as opposed to some fish that I've seen in which it spears the fish a few times before eating it.

Great Blue Heron

It wouldn't be right to end the month without a post of a Great Blue Heron. They are so prevalent around here.

I came upon this one crossing one of the bridges over the creek along at TRNWR. It was down below standing on a submerged log. Normally a Great Blue will fly away if encountered as close as I was to it. But this one had a bead on something in the water and decided it was more interested in it than it was fearful of me.
As I was taking pictures of it, I could see it pulling its head back and crouching, preparing to lunge its large beak into the water to catch some tasty morsel of food. I caught it in the act of the strike, but unfortunately the images of it eating the prey didn't turn out well and I couldn't tell what it had caught. None-the-less, it look quite pleased with itself after it gobble it down.

Great Blue Heron - Fishing

Sometimes it just pays to be lucky. You can plan all you want, but if the birds aren't cooperating, you aren't going to get many good pictures.

I was walking along the main pond at Fernhill Wetland when I saw a head sticking up above the grass along the shore. It was a Great Blue Heron and it was right in front of me. I expected it to fly off before I could get my camera up to my eye, but to my surprise it just stood there. It even let me move in closer, getting images that filled my view finder. (None of the images above were cropped)
I took several pictures as it stood almost motionless. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't flying off as Great Blue, never stick around when they see people.
Then, very quickly, it plunged its head under water and pulled out a fish. It was at that point that it flew off. I took pictures as fast as I could and got a few that captured the action. Makes me wonder if it just tolerated my presence the whole time because it had a bead on that fish.
Note how green the water is with algae.

Great Blue Heron

Fernhill Wetland is usually a good place to get close to Great Blue Herons and Thursday was no different. The Heron in the images above started out quite close to me, wading in the pond just off the service road. As usual though, it was not trusting enough to stick around for very long, but it didn't go too far, landing in the tall shore grasses just a short ways away.

I love capturing these huge, graceful birds fly and even more so landing. It's during the act of landing that you get to see their wings and tail fully extended and many times their feathers ruffled by the act.

Great Blue Heron - Gloomy

Well, isn't this different.
I took this picture of a Great Blue Heron sitting in a tree off in the distance about a week ago on a gloomy day (we have had a lot of those lately). When I viewed it on my computer I thought it was interesting, but I didn't know what to do with it.
I ran across it again tonight while looking for something to post. Then I thought, why not gray scale it and turn the contrast up. Make it even more of a silhouette than it already was. I played with that some, but wasn't happy with it.
Then I remembered that I had played with some of the more exotic filters that Pixelmator has a while back. There was one called Gloom that might just do the trick. Sure enough, I liked it, so I tweaked the color and brightness a bit and after several different attempts decided I liked this one. A bit Tim Burtonish, don't you think? :-)

Great Blue Heron

I spent a couple hours at Fernhill Wetlands this morning. It wasn't as active as the last time I visited; probably because the migration is slowing down and I arrived a little later in the day. There were a lot of Great Blue Herons however, and I got some relatively close shots of them. I rented the 400mm lens again this weekend, so I was able to get in even closer. The image above was taken just as the heron was landing. It really shows off what massive, magnificent wings these birds have. Its raised feathers on what be our forearms remind of flaps on a airliner as it lands.

Great Blue Heron

I'm bachin' it today and tomorrow, so I decided to spend the evening at TRNWR. What a shock. They drained just about all the water out of the refuge. After reading a few informational signs throughout, I realized that this is normal. They are trying to simulate the past flood of winter and receding waters of spring and summer. I still found it disappointing. To top it off, one of the first things I saw off in the distance was a Coyote attacking a Canadian Goose and its Gosling. It was quite the scene and I couldn't help thinking to myself that the birds would have had more of a chance had there been more water to take refuge. Oh well, I guess this is the natural order of things.

Anyway, after a slow start, it turned out to be an interesting evening. I saw a few new species. I also got some decent shots of a Great Blue Heron in flight. I mentioned in an earlier post how I have difficulty with birds in flight. This is the third or fourth opportunity that I have to shot a Great Blue in flight and these are by far the best.

Great Blue Heron

I took Cait out with me late this afternoon. She wanted to try taking some pictures of her own with my old camera, so we headed out to TRNWR. While Cait was taking pictures of landscapes and interesting geometries, I was looking for birds. Things were pretty slow. Late afternoons/evenings appear to be bad times to go birding. We walked all the way out to the Wetland Observatory Deck. On our way back, I noticed this Great Blue Heron sitting down in Chicken Creek. The sun was setting and there were clouds in the sky so the shooting conditions were poor, especially with the Heron 15 feet or so down in the ravine. But, what the heck, it's the first Great Blue Heron I've seen since I got my camera. Most of the pictures were grainy and dark, but the sun poked through a cloud for a bit, and while there was not direct sun light, things brightened up a enough to get a reasonable photo.