Pics: quality heron time

[kayre]

I rambled around my favorite park for 2 hours today. Saw lots of frogs and turtles, several herons that flushed as soon as I got close... and then spent about 10 minutes watching this one.





Then I arrived at my favorite pond of all, the one that's not visible from a road-- and there were 3 or 4 green-backed herons moving around, not at all worried about my presence. That's really unusual, so I stayed for a long time.









I also followed this monarch butterfly along the road for a while.

Comments

[amaebi]

Oooooooh!

I love how green-backed herons unfold and reveal that they're actually feathered plumbing, too.

[sine_nomine]

Remarkable!

[gingicat]

These are lovely!

I miss you.

[ranunculus]

Last night we saw a program on animal intelligence. One segment was about a green heron who had figured out how to make bread into a bait for fish. Not only did he pick bread pieces up from the ground and drop them in the water to use it as bait, but he waited while little fish fed on it, until a bigger fish came along before nabbing it. When a fish too big for him to eat came along, he removed the bread from the water and waited. Smart.

[amaebi]

Wow, that is awesome!