Saturday, December 06, 2008

Count the night herons

night herons
It was getting late and I'd been frustrated with all the pretty ducks on the far shore of the pond avoiding my camera when another birder casually mentioned a Eurasian Wigeon on the other side of the little island in front of me.

I made my may to the opposite shore and sorted through the wigeon - not finding the eurasian - and looked up to see a sleepy-eyed night heron stepping among the sleepy-eyed mallards at the edge of the island. Widening my glance I saw the above panorama which included at least fifteen others amid the tangles of bittersweet. Even more were deeper in the scrubby bushes! Most were immatures, but if you count the things that look like pale footballs with legs, you'll get the idea.

I stitched the pics together, but the file is too large for Blogger. The pic links to photobucket where maybe you can enlarge it. I wonder how many times I've driven past this daytime roost and missed these birds entirely.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. I love the way night herons hide in plain sight.

bobbie said...

I've only ever seen one night heron. This is quite a shot.

Ruth said...

I saw Night Herons for the first time this year. I took two other birders to see them and they both said, "Where?!" They really blend in well with the shore. The most I saw at one time was 4, not like your crowd.

Larry said...

it's hard to see but that's very cool. The most I've ever seen is two at a time and I don't get to see them very often.-I've never seen the yellow-crowned.

RG said...

Isn't that something! Great timing ...

dguzman said...

WOW! Cool. Now you know where to go to see them!