Territorial Disputes with Great Blue Herons

This morning, I heard new sounds from the great blue heron nesting tree.  I looked up and there were two herons, an adult and a 5-6 week old chick - poking at each other.  I'm assuming this was a territorial dispute.  In some ways it reminded me of Chinese puppet shows shown behind a screen.

About flying birds and insects

I like the challenge of catching flight of things flying.  Here are some examples.

A dragonfly in flight

White birds and Egrets in particular are difficult to photograph.  Often the detail is lost because of overexposure.   I've used 2 strategies: 1) use spot metering which decreases the overall exposure and when using aperture mode, increases the shutter speed - that helps with freezing motion; 2) use EV = -1 with metering that covers the entire field of view.  For focus, I use Group focus, a wonderful feature of the Nikon D500.

A great blue heron bring food to her chicks

White egret from below

Another view of the white egret.  

A green heron departing from a limb

Green heron in flight

Osprey hunting for lunch

I think this is a hawk

A dragonfly emerging from the nymph stage

Green Heron

Little Blue Heron

Hoverfly hovering

Eating and learning to fly

It seems that herons, like bard owls, learn to fly by first learning to balance and walking / hopping around the nest.   Next they move out on nearby limbs and practice flapping their wings - then the next step - I'm waiting to happen.

New Sounds from Great Blue Heron Chicks

Watching the Heron nests is just plain fun.  Interesting behavior and great opportunities to capture video of their behavior

Great Blue Heron Family Life

I've been watching this family of Great Blue Herons since mid January.  The kids appear to be almost adult and their eating behavior is quite interesting to watch - as though they are trying to eat their mom or eat each other.  Here are the photos and videos:

Two hungry chicks

Mom arrives

With mouths open, the chick start what appears to be biting mom's beak and biting each other -  a puzzle to me 

Easier to get the idea in a video:

Here the chicks have pulled mom down, I suppose to grab something to eat

A maze of beaks - mom in the middle

A chick with wide open mouth -  apparently aimed at mom's beak

Here the chick is pulling mom's beak down while the other chick appears to also be grabbing mom's beak

Finally breakfast is over

and mom departs 

Meanwhile, back in the nest, the kids stand erect and sort of vibrate their throats:

Spear fishing by white egrets

This morning, I watched a group of white egrets fishing for breakfast.  There seemed to be two modes of fishing using their beak: 1) capturing the fish in their mouth and 2) thrusting their beak to spear the fish.   One episode recorded below shows the egret speared the fish at their gill - is this an accident or a skill?  Later I'll annotate the photos below  - for now you can look and make your own interpretation.

Wing assisted propelling the beak into the water

Another variant of wing assisted spearing

Wing assisted plunging the beak into the water.

Caught something with her beak

And flies away for post processing

Flying away with a mouth full of "stuff"

Holding a small fish in her mouth

Prepare to swallow

Catching a fish:  Thrusting her beak forward with neck power

Thrusting the beak using neck power

The result of the thrust

Plant material and a speared fish (in contrast to catching between the upper and lower parts of the beak - as shown above)

Step 2

Step 3:  speared fish

Step 4: spearing through the fish gill

Step 5:  Reposition fish

Step 6: Reposition again

Step 7:  Reposition again

Step 8: Move fish to the end of beak

Step 9: Quickly release and reacquire

Step 10: stabilize holding the fish with minimal plant debris

Step 11: Move fish closer to the swallowing position

Step 12: release extraneous plant material

Step 13: Reposition fish to the swallowing position

Step 14: rotate fish

Step 15: swallow fish only (avoid plant debris)

Step 16: reposition plant material 

Step 17: consolidate plant material

Step 18: Discharge plant material

Step 19: Savor the flavor

Juvenile Little Blue Heron

Tricolor Heron

Little Blue Heron

Black Crowned Night Heron

Hungry Great blue heron chick

NIctitating Membrane covering the eye

NIctitating Membrane withdrawn

Green heron