Green Heron - Juvenile

I'm not sure why, but it seems whenever I see a juvenile Green Heron, they tend to have their necks fully extended. You wouldn't know that Green Herons have such long necks from typical adult sightings as adults seem to always have it retracted. Maybe its just because juvenile birds tend to be more curious and trusting than adults, so they just want to see whats going on around them.
I saw this juvenile at Fernhill Wetlands back on Sept 9. I had to creep down through the tall grass to get a clear view of it as it stood along the shore. I saw another similarly extended necked juvenile here a year ago this past August. Here's a couple of examples of adults with their necks retracted; here and here.

Green Heron

I've taken better pictures of Green Herons, but it's been awhile since I've seen one and this Heron, while skittish like most, stuck around long enough and offered up some interesting poses, so I decided to post these images I took on the 6th at Fernhill Wetlands.

Green Heron

Along with the numerous Great Blue Herons at Fernhill Wetland, I have been observing Green Herons regularly also. They tend to be even more elusive than the Great Blues though as they are smaller and tend to lay lower in the tall grasses along the edges of the ponds.
As I walked past the Northeast shelter along the main pond, I heard an occasional load sound kind of like a 'crack'. I didn't know what it was, nor quite where it was coming from as the sound was quite short.
I continued slowly along the service road just past a mid-sized tree when what looked like a Green Heron flew out of the tree, followed by another from along the pond. They both landed near by, so I turned back to see if I could find them.
I first walked along the edge of the pond peeking over the edge to see if I could either of them. Sure enough, one was there, but it flew off before I could spot it. I then looked around a bit when I noticed one standing in the open on the other side of the service road.
It didn't seem to mind me being there so I was able to take several pictures.
Later that night, when I looked at the images on my computer, there seemed to be something not quite right about birds. I have seen Green Herons before, but not a lot and not usually so close. This one seemed slightly different though. For a bit I thought maybe it wasn't a Green Heron and tried to convince myself that it was a Least Bittern, but it's overall features more closely resembled a Green Heron, especially it's back and wing coloration.
One of the things that bothered my is that the front of its neck was more striped than others that I've seen, though during all other sightings of the bird, they not have their neck extended as far as this one. The other thing is that its beak was much bright yellow. Typically Green Heron's beaks are darker.
Then I noticed a few white puffs on its crest. They appeared to be down feathers. It was then that I decided that I must be looking at a juvenile. That would also explain why it was more tolerant of my presence.
Notice that in the center image it has a Dragon or Damsel Fly in its beak.

Green Heron

I thought it would be fun to post a variety of crops of the same picture. The images above are of one of the Green Herons that make a pond at Mentor Graphics home. The image turned out quite sharp, but had a couple of interesting features to work around. One is the nice reflection in the water and the other is the bright Yellow Water Iris leaves off to the right.
The bright Water Iris leaves are a bit distracting and overexposed. There is not much I can do with them by adjusting exposure. If I were more highly skilled, I might try to work with layers and lay something over it. So, that leaves cropping it out or living with it.
The top image attempts to totally crop out the leaves and feature the full reflection in the water. The center image does the same thing, but opens up the sides a little allowing some of the leaves. The bottom image ignores the both the reflection and attempting to crop out the leaves. It instead features the direction of the head and beak and crops horizontally instead of vertically. In the case of this picture, I like the bottom image the best, but that is just my opinion.

Green Heron

These pictures could be filed under fortuitous for multiple reasons. First of all I almost didn't seen this Green Heron. I was walking along one of the ponds at Mentor Graphics looking for opportunities. There wasn't much around me at the moment and I was looking up ahead to see if anything interesting was coming up. Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bit of orange color on the other side of the pond along the reeds. I thought maybe it was one of the Hooded Mergansers that hang out here sometimes. On the other had it could just be a log. It wasn't moving making my second guess more likely, but I thought I might as take a look through my camera's telephoto lens. What a surprise! I knew it was something new, but I wasn't sure what. My guess was it was some type of bittern. It wasn't until I viewed the images on my computer that I identified it as a Green Heron.
It really was quite a ways away, so I was paying as much attention to focusing as I could and took a lot of shots since I knew there was a lot of chance for error. While not perfect, for as far as it was from me, I was pretty happy with several of the pictures.
Then I opened one image and it had something in its bill. It was just a light colored blob, but I thought it was pretty cool. Then I opened the next shot. Jack-pot! There was a small fish in its bill. I didn't even know there were fish in these ponds.