Herons at the Neighborhood Pond

Our neighborhood pond is still an eyesore – cleaned out with a bulldozer in late spring, most of the vegetation gone, and covered with algae. But it is full of frogs which can sometimes be spotted if you hear plops as they move through the shallows. It’s made the pond a good place for a green heron which I have seen so frequently that it must be a near permanent resident. I always enjoy photographing green herons because they have so many ‘looks.’ Sometimes they look chunky and not much like a heron. Other times the feathers on top of their head stand almost straight up…a bird with a mohawk! Other times their neck elongates but looks very thick and strange for a heron. But sometimes they hold themselves in a pose that looks like most of the other herons (the very last image in the slide show below.

I spotted a Great Blue Heron in the pond last week. It doesn’t have adult plumage and the bill is two-toned so it probably is one that hatched this spring. It has a white spot under its eye which I noticed in several images; maybe that makes it unique. It found a meal near the pond drain but swallowed it before I could see what it was – maybe a frog…or a small fish.

Even though the pond has no visual appeal on its own, I like the birds that are there!

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge – Part 2

Continuing yesterday’s blog post about our visit to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE….

There were quite a few Great Blue Herons – none were very close.

There were four way out in one of the ponds. When I zoomed in I discovered there were Northern Shovelers (ducks) and a Black-Necked Stilt.

Also further out – near the limit of my camera’s zoom – was a Great Egret and a lot of smaller birds. The ones with the black breast are Black-Bellied Plovers. In the second picture below there is one flying; the black belly with very white rump and black armpits are clearly visible.

Then something startled the birds and they flew up – curtaining the egrets behind them!

In another area, there were two mute swans. These are not natives. Many states try to control their numbers because they are aggressive and have such voracious appetites that they disrupt local ecosystems and displace native species.

I got several pictures of Yellowlegs. The ones with the longer bills are Greater Yellowlegs and the short bills are Lesser Yellowlegs.