Chad's Bird Blog: June 2013

Saturday, June 29, 2013

6/14/13 Happy Place in the Evening

Carolyn and I have found that if we go to the Happy Place at night, like around 6:00, it's a little less muggy. The lighting is also pretty nice. For this post, I decided not to crop or edit any of the pictures in any way...

This Black-crowned Night Heron nest is actually best observed from shore. It is the only one in this part of the pond and one of maybe 5-8 Black-crowned nests among the literally hundreds of Cattle Egret and dozens of Little Blues.

The point of this picture is just to show how densely populated the Cattle Egret and Little Blue Heron nests are.

Black-crowned Night Heron (the same one as above)

Black-crowned Night Heron - getting closer...

Black-crowned Night Heron (and closer.)

Again, notice how many nesting birds there are - and look at these baby Little Blue Herons.

Little Blue Heron

Black-crowned Night Heron

Black-crowned Night Heron - we're getting too close for comfort now.

Black-crowned Night Heron

Little Blue Heron

For some reason, I think the Cattle Egret babies are uglier than the others.

More Cattle Egret babies.

Cattle Egrets

Little Blue Heron. I really like the protective pose this bird took over the nest.

This is another Black-crowned Night Heron nest in a different part of the same pond.

Black-crowned Night Heron

There are one, maybe two Tricolored Heron nests in the same area of the pond as the Black-crowned above. We also saw a lot of Great Egrets in the same area, but we haven't found where they're nesting for sure. Anyway, this was just before sunset and I got a bunch of good pictures of this Tricolored Heron. I probably kept too many of them, but I couldn't decide which ones to delete.

Tricolored Heron

Cattle Egret babies

I call these next three pictures Cormorant synchronized swimming. I'm not sure, but I think these are Double-crested Cormorants. The other option would be Neotropic Cormorants - we have both around here.

Double-crested Cormorants

Baby Little Blue Herons

Baby Little Blue Heron - Technically, this probably a really bad picture, but I still think it's pretty cool.

In this light, even the dragonflies look cool!!

If you follow my blog at all, you are probably getting tired of Least Bittern pictures, but I couldn't help myself.

Least Bittern

6/10/13-6/11/13 Artesian Lakes Retreat

For work we had a two-day offsite meeting at "The Retreat at Artesian Lakes" (www.artesianlakes.com). I got to spend about an hour each morning walking and talking pictures. There were several woodpeckers and other birds high in the canopy that I couldn't get pictures of, but I did get a few good pictures.

The first morning, about 10 of us went for a "nature walk" with the owner. There was a small rookery on one of the ponds with several Cattle Egrets and a few Little Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets.

Juvenile Little Blue Heron (or perhaps Snowy Egret, I'm not 100% sure)

As we came around one corner, we scared up this Great Blue Heron. I was able to get a couple of decent shots before he flew off into the fog.

Great Blue Heron

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

The second day I went out by myself and got a few shots of small birds. These were the only ones worth keeping:

I'm pretty sure this is a female Scarlet Tanager, but it might be a female Summer Tanager.

Blue Jay - included especially for my daughter Samantha who swears she's never seen a Blue Jay
except for some babies one time...

This Carolina Wren stood on this rail and struck several different poses.
These were the two best pictures.

Carolina Wren - very earnest looking isn't he?

Thursday, June 20, 2013

6/8/13 Happy Place with Jeremy and Jason Stinson

Jeremy and I took the kayak out to the happy place on Saturday, June 8th.

We had quite and adventure - we heard the beaver a couple of times but didn't get a look.

As we pulled into the North end of the small pond from the bayou, we saw this juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron. Jeremy did a great job rowing very slowing so we could keep inching closer.

Juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron

As we made our way further south, a baby Northern Mockingbird fall into the water right in front of us.
We tried to help get to it and lift it out with the oar but we were too late. We literally watched it drown. By the time we get there this was all that was left. Kind of sad, but it was still pretty cool.

I had Jeremy put his hand up for perspective.

A little later our friend Jason Stinson and his daugher Kiera came out and I got to play bird guide for the first time. We saw this Green Heron..

Green Heron

And then we went through the thick stuff and found a Little Blue Heron nest. I'm not sure if it was the same one that I saw the prior week, but I think it might be. By the way, little Kiera was quite a trooper despite the spiders and bugs!

Baby Little Blue Herons

Baby Little Blue Heron

Then we went out to a Green Heron nest on the West side of the small pond and saw these baby Green Herons. These were just eggs one week earlier so I know these are less than a week old.

Baby Green Heron

Baby Green Herons

After about an hour with Jason and Kiera, Jeremy and I got back in and went over to the Big Pond where we found this Snowy Egret (I'm almost positive) nest with these three little guys.

Baby Snowy Egrets

Baby Snowy Egret - I think this picture is pretty cool!!

Snowy Egret - Just think, this is what it will look like when it grows up...

I'm almost positive that this next bird is a Tricolored Heron. I don't know if this is a juvenile or what, but the bright blue-bill is pretty cool.

Tricolored Heron

Tricolored Heron - pretty cool pose I thought...

Tricolored Heron

Tricolored Heron - A little better lighting this time.

Tricolored Heron

We had to head back, but we couldn't resist trying to get a few shots of this Great Egret before we left. I find these birds never let me get very close.