Gray Days

Another gray day today with spatterings of rain. - I don't like this weather much but above is someone who does.

Grumpy?

Great Blue Herons are quite common in North America and I see them often on my morning walk. I like them because they are large, not too shy, and spend a lot of time standing very still - the photographer's ideal bird. However, even after a successful morning's fishing they always wear an expression of deep gloom, despair and desolation. Mallard Ducks, on the other hand, always seem to be smiling and calm. This has set me to thinking about how we interpret the expressions on the faces of birds and about human faces also. I have a particular empathy with the Great Blue Herons pictured here because I am often surprised by the expression on the face that looks back at me from the mirror every morning. With age my face seems to have settled into an expression of gloomy bad temper, a mood that I rarely feel. Yet I suspect that people seeing me often assume I am angry and dissatisfied when I am actually quite content, even merry from time to time. I am hoping that this is the case with Great Blue Herons.

Bird Portraiture

I must confess that my photographic interests have shifted considerably since I began this blog. I have become progressively more interested in urban and peri-urban wildlife, especially birds. Amongst birds, Great Blue Herons are favorite photographic models of mine since they are large, numerous and stand perfectly still for long periods of time. They do, however, tend to wear a rather bleak expression and look a little scruffy, especially around their heads. This fellow poses quite conveniently near the West Bay Walkway most mornings.

Humph!

The last few days have been very frivolous and full of people having fun, so let's just get back to life's hard realities. You wanna piece o' me? Go ahead, make my day!

Luck

On a recent morning walk along the West Bay Walkway I noticed that there were several Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) stalking their breakfast so I stopped, attached the 300mm telephoto lens and made the settings appropriate for capturing photos of birds in flight, on the off chance one of the herons might decide to change locations. As luck would have it, a few minutes later this splendid specimen spread his wings and flew across my field of vision exactly where I had imagined. Sometimes you don't get what you want, and sometimes you have to struggle to get it, but there are times when it just falls into your lap.

Cold Old Friend

Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary is still in winter mode though a few green buds are swelling. When I was out there yesterday there was a chill wind blowing and this Great Blue Heron was tucked up against the cold. I wish I had this Heron's sharp and beady eye this morning because I had intended to post a photo of one of the many other birds I saw there. However, my bird field guides are apparently still unpacked and until they are found....

Most Popular?

Great Blue Herons are year round residents here but I didn't see much of this one during the summer and was happy to see him back on his usual perch high in an evergreen tree above the Sailor's Cove end of the West Bay Walkway. He's there most mornings, alternately preening and snoozing in the sun. I'm guessing that these birds are the most photographed birds in North America because they're big, they're widespread, they often live in or near urban environments, and (photographer's delight) they often stand perfectly still for long periods of time. Over the last few years they've appeared on this blog at least a half dozen times.

Gotcha!

I see these Great Blue Herons catching their food almost every day and I am always impressed by how seldom they miss. When they make that stab into the water they usually come up with something wriggling. However, until recently I haven't had a camera that could capture video as well as still photos. The Sony a55 I am now using does both. If you want to watch a Great Blue Heron catching his breakfast in High Definition video, the clip below is only 20 seconds long. Often the waiting and watching is five or ten minutes of concentrated immobility.

In-Flight Entertainment

We have had very low tides recently and the consequent exposure of tidal flats that are normally covered with water seems to be encouraging increased activity amongst the Great Blue Herons. While I often see one on my morning walk along the West Bay Walkway, I seldom see more than one. Yesterday I saw three in various places along the walkway fishing in the shallows where the water is normally much deeper. I also saw a River Otter just offshore yesterday but there was little of him visible but his head popping up above the water from time to time to do some vigorous chewing and swallowing.

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Why Great Blue Heron? When I look at the above photo I see lots of gray, some black and orange, some yellow and white but no blue of any shade. There is also a "Green" Heron which is equally un-green if the photos are anything to go by. One doesn't mind if the Latin names for plants and animals don't communicate much except to ancient Romans, but generally one expects the common names to refer to some distinctive aspect of the plant or animal. Oh well, sometimes life is just plain disappointing. Things don't make sense and there is not even any good reason for the confusion.

Smart Birds 1

Western science has been slow to recognize intelligence in animals. I suspect this is because since we began to get our food from agriculture there has been little need to observe animals closely in the way that hunters do. I always enjoy seeing animals think and above is a little example I saw out at Esquimalt Lagoon. Great Blue Herons usually wade around until they catch a small fish. Getting their catch from the end of that long beak into their mouth is usually just a matter of opening the beak briefly while tipping the head back so that the catch slides down towards the throat. I've never seen a heron lose a small fish while doing this so I watched with interest when the heron pictured above caught a furiously wriggling eel (above left). I figured he was going to lose it for sure as soon as he opened his bill in order to slide it down towards his mouth since the eel was whipping itself back and forth vigorously. What the heron did in this situation was to wade in to the beach and up onto the shingle. There he dropped his catch on the pebbles where it couldn't swim away to safety. The heron then stabbed it a few times (above center). Once it had stopped moving he picked it up and swallowed it in the usual way (above right). If you think about it, this is a wonderfully complex series of actions. I wonder whether this bird figured this method out for itself or whether it is behavior learned from other herons. I had been watching this heron for some time and earlier saw it twice catch small fish and swallow them without killing them on shore first.

Headless Heron

Actually this Great Blue Heron is just having a nap. It must be very convenient to be able to just tuck your head under a large wing whenever you want to shut out the world. But I don't know as I'd care to try it while balancing on a branch about 30 feet up in a tree. I have several times seen this heron snoozing like this above the West Bay Walkway near Sailor's Cove.

Morning Fog

Victoria, like its namesake, is a very civilized, genteel city but it is situated on the edge of the vast forests of the Pacific Northwest and thus shares some of the wildness that lies all around. I have been reminded of this on my morning walks lately, with last week's raccoon and this morning's Great Blue Heron, fishing for his breakfast with the Inner Harbour and the Fairmont Empress Hotel dimly visible in the background.

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

Thanks to a suggestion from a visitor to this site, I went to Cuthbert Holmes Park yesterday where some Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) are nesting in a group known as a heronry. Local users of the park helpfully guided me to the best location to view the birds. I saw about a dozen of these large nests while I was there but there are probably more since quite a few are located in living trees and are hard to see because they are hidden by the foliage. In years gone by this heronry has been under attack by Bald Eagles who swoop down on the heron nestlings. While I was there an eagle cruised slowly overhead. Though he was a long ways above, sailing peacefully along, all the herons took flight and began circling around their nesting area and making loud calls. A regular visitor to the park told me that she had to curtail her visits to the park last year because of the heartrending scenes arising from the eagle attacks.

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The visitor mentioned above, Mike Laplante, has also blogged some of his photos of these birds with some interesting background information, HERE.

Witty's Lagoon IV

Across the strait are the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula in the USA. On this side this couple shares a landscape of blue and gray with a Great Blue Heron hunting for his supper.

Thoughtful

Thoughtful? This is the Great Blue Heron. I describe this bird as thoughtful because of the way he stands perfectly still for long periods of time. Most birds flap into view, perch beguilingly until I have my camera out, then fly off cackling just as I raise it to my eye. Not the Great Blue Heron. This bird strikes a pose and holds it, for five or ten minutes. Other birds please take note. This is proper behavior, thoughtful!

Great Blue Heron

A nesting colony of Great Blue Herons is located in Beacon Hill Park, within a few minutes walk from downtown Victoria. The colony has been under attack lately from Bald Eagles who occasionally nest nearby, causing a small controversy amongst locals, some maintaining that the herons should be protected while others say that the eagles and herons are natural enemies and the attacks are simply nature taking its course. However, the herons are a small and at-risk population while the Bald Eagle is thriving - estimated population in BC is 20 to 30 thousand, about a third of the North American total. In any case, it seemed like a rare privilege for a city dweller like myself to be able to approach such a splendid creature so closely and I hope the eagles will find something else to eat.