Great Blue Heron Side And Seek

May 11th, 2012. Continued from here. We continued upriver and found a tree that had fallen into the river but still had leaves. It may still be alive. W spotted a Great Blue Heron standing on the horizontal trunk. I couldn’t see it for a while; it was ‘hidden’ behind a leafy branch. The river had quite a current at this point so W had to work the boat upstream slowly while trying to get to a position that would allow us to see the heron. We made several runs up to the tree. We never got a completely clear view of the heron but…

The heron from a distance. Only its head and shoulders were in view.

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Several views of he heron. It watched us but didn’t seem to perturbed, particularly since we made five or six approaches to the tree and came quite close to it on the last approach.

Finally, we gave up approaching the tree from downstream and came around to get a view from the upstream side of the tree.

The heron didn’t see things the same way when we approached from the upstream side. I got one last shot before it flew off.

Next: Pink Queen (Cleome hassleriana)
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Identification resources:
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology: Ardea herodias (Great Blue Heron)

Related posts:
- Running The Oconee River: North from Dyar Pasture
- Oconee River: Goslings On The Go