Category Archives: Wading Birds

Three Hungry Egrets

May 21, 2018 Ellen Jennings 4 Comments

Three Great Egret chicks worked to get food from the parent that has just returned to the nest. The chicks’ pulling on the adult’s beak stimulates regurgitation.

This time it didn’t seem to produce anything and the adult’s neck had an odd kink in it…maybe what he just ate wouldn’t come back.

They gave it another try. If there was any food produced it was pretty small. These chicks’ beaks are nearly as big as the adult’s, and look as sharp.

The adult flew off leaving the chicks to chew on each other.

Wading Birds

Black-crowned Night-heron

May 21, 2018 Ellen Jennings 4 Comments

Surveying his realm, this single Black-crowned Night-Heron was on a small island in what was an active Little Blue Heron rookery last year. This year he seems to be the only wading bird using it.

Shortly after I took this picture he dropped down into the center of the island out of sight, presumably to a nest.

Wading Birds

Great Egret Chicks: Three New Rookery Residents

May 17, 2018 Ellen Jennings 9 Comments

Great Egret chicks are continuing to hatch around the rookery and these are three of the youngest I saw on Tuesday.

Clearly not very strong, these chicks were moving around and interacting with each other: poking, chewing, and leaning on each other.

At this age they aren’t active for very long at a time and one of them, probably the youngest, flopped over on his side well before the other two.

Wading Birds

That Had to Hurt

May 12, 2018 Ellen Jennings 5 Comments

Side by side in the nest, minding their own business, these two Great Egret chicks just couldn’t sit still any more. At least one of them couldn’t.

First it looked like brotherly hug.

Then, WHAM, I got you!

And again!

Back to minding their own business. No blood in evidence.

Wading Birds

I Can Fly

May 12, 2018 Ellen Jennings 4 Comments

I’d been watching the nest with three Great Blue Heron chicks off and on for a half hour and one of the chicks was getting more adventurous.

The other two were content with their wingercizing but this one was thinking about the big one.

The other two looked on curiously, but were not interested in joining in.

I looked away to check out some Anhinga chick squawking and it had happened! I couldn’t spot him at first, expecting that he’d have gone to the right. Instead he had flapped up to a branch about 15 feet away.

This got his siblings’ attention and they gave him the once over when he returned to the nest a few minutes later.

Wading Birds

Slowly to the Edge

May 11, 2018 Ellen Jennings 10 Comments

On a limb dangling over the water this Green Heron was intent on his mission.

Slowly he inched his way to the end of the branch.

And leaned, and stretched, undisturbed by the passing dragon fly.

The branch bobbed under his weight and over he went.

He was after a stick for his nest, or at least that is what he came back with.

Juvenile Birds, Wading Birds

Sibling Spat

May 7, 2018 Ellen Jennings 10 Comments

I heard them way before I got to the swamp: they were squawking the way they do when a parent has brought food. Instead of feeding, the scene when I got there was more like a human telling his sibling what’s what.

You could practically hear “You’re not the boss of me!”

I’m not sure if this was backing down or just requisitioning.

And as is often the case with humans, it was all over a couple minutes later, apparently with no harm done.

A lone adult, perhaps from this nest, stood with a tired look at the edge of the pond. The adults all around the rookery are starting to look like they have had enough.

Juvenile Birds, Wading Birds

Late Bloomer: Great Blue Heron Chick

May 4, 2018 Ellen Jennings 6 Comments

This single Great Blue Heron chick has gotten a rough start in life and hasn’t seemed to be thriving as well as those in nearby nests. On my most recent pass by his nest he was up doing some wingersizing, which is a hopeful sign.

The adult wasn’t paying him any attention, which isn’t unusual, but without any siblings to interact with he’s got to poke at his parents once in awhile.

This nest is in the same tree as the multiple Great Egret nests. This fellow’s next challenge will be to fend off those chicks and their parents once they notice he is there. Last year the GBH chicks in this nest hatched much earlier than the Great Egret chicks so they had more of a size advantage. And there were two of them.