Thrill of the Chase

Great Blue Heron

I'm pretty confident that this is a juvenile Great Blue Heron.  An adult would have a black and white crown and this guys seems to be all dark.  Also the striping on the throat and neck indicate juvenile.  While I was taking these photos another birder asked me how many photos of a Great Blue Heron do I need?  The short answer, for my project, is at least one a week.  But really I'd photograph them every day.  And when one flies right over my head...well, I'm not going to miss that.  Each bird is an individual and I can learn a lot from the photos I take.  Not to mention, I enjoy it. Plus who doesn't love a flight sequence??

Study in Grey

As winter started to wrap up I noticed a definite pattern.  First of all, I'm teaching Mon-Thurs at 8am so I did most of my walking this winter on Friday mornings.  The last month or so it would be bright, sunny, and even warm on say, Tuesday, and cold dark and raining on Friday.  I'm pretty sure this happened every week for the whole month of March.  As a result I saw a lot at the refuge but didn't have much light to record it.  But the light works for a situation like this.  I do love these tangles of grass.

Keeping Up

It seems like all winter I was struggling to find images to blog and now with the huge influx of Florida photos and spring arriving here I can't keep up.  But as I'm sorting and organizing I find a few more photos of winter to post.  And as I struggle to breathe in the heavily pollinated air I think back to how nice it was to walk in the snow.

Great Blue Heron

Scale

Great Blue Heron

This Great Blue Heron is not in the least shy.  He took off out of the water (first two shots), then landed on the boardwalk railing, waited for me to catch up, posed for a few photos, and then took off from the railing (second two photos.)  I was very close to him on the boardwalk.  You can see I couldn't even get his whole body in the frame. 

Almost Done

No new installation pictures yet.  Tomorrow will be day four.  A grueling process for sure but I think tomorrow I'll also be finished.  So instead a Great Blue Heron from Heinz NWR.  I love the velvety soft grey color of his neck!