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.