The last month has been really slow for seeing wading birds of any kind around Charleston. There is a lot of talk that Hurricane Florence disturbed the bird migration and who knows when we might see an influx.
With not much else happening, we took a walk around the dike at Magnolia Plantation yesterday. Always attractive, this single Great Blue Heron held my attention for quite awhile, preening, looking around, and even fluffed his head feathers up.
He should have been paying more attention to the water. I took the photos to get some action, but didn’t know what was afoot. A good sized shrimp had jumped out of the water as high as the platform the bird was standing on. I, not surprisingly, didn’t see the shrimp until I was processing these photos.
The shrimp managed to flip himself to the right as the heron stabbed straight down.
Score one for the shrimp and zero for the bewildered Great Blue.
Brilliant.
🙂
Funny! 🙂
What a cool sequence, Ellen. I would think the success rate for the Great Blue Heron would be greater if it was in the water. Catching a jumping shrimp can’t be easy even under the best of circumstances.
Thanks, Mike. I agree; interestingly the GBH could have gone to the lower end of the platform and easily reached the water where there was a lot of movement, but didn’t.
Nice action shots!
That’s really a missed opportunity, I mean, for the GBH. You took some wonderful shots!
Thanks, Greta. The herons are entertaining to watch!
Ellen , really cool.
Thanks, Phyllis!