Confused Heron

From my June 2012 nature journal...

© Photographer: William Wise | iNat Observation: 20052938 - Great Blue Heron; Athens-Clarke County, Georgia. June 11, 2012.

I was on the last half-mile stretch of my daily 35 mile commute when I spotted a Great Blue Heron standing in a neighbor’s front yard, right next to the sidewalk. “Now that’s weird”, I thought to myself. He was standing alongside a dry, rock-lined drainage ditch as if he were fishing for food. But that little drainage ditch was dry!

Only after heavy rains does that drain have any water, and even then it is only about an inch deep. But I suppose from up in the air, with the sun reflecting off the concrete, it may look like a tiny stream. Somehow it had attracted his attention.

The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is the largest North American heron. It is a year-round resident in Georgia. Their primary diet is fish, but I have photographed plenty snapping up frogs, snakes, dragonflies and other insects.

Looking more closely, I could see his feathers weren’t fully formed. Short, neatly rowed, un-tattered feathers lined his side and back. There were no long plumes down his back or from the crown of the head like the typical adult heron. Perhaps this was an inexperienced juvenile, striking out on his own to find new feeding grounds. Well, he wasn’t going to find any fish in a dry, cement lined drainage ditch!

• Athens-Clarke County, Georgia

Publicado el junio 11, 2022 03:51 TARDE por williamwisephoto