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Great Blue Heron

Ardea herodias

Description:

The Great Blue Heron is a large wading bird usually found by lake shores or open water. These two appear to be courting each other. (Another near by male was trying his best to get noticed, with no luck!)

Habitat:

A large cottonwood tree at the edge of a small pond on a golf course.

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23 Comments

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 9 years ago

Thanks Leuba! This rookery is still there. Sadly, no herons came last year. It was very strange. I'm hoping they return this spring! This will always be a very special spotting for me.

Leuba Ridgway
Leuba Ridgway 9 years ago

Worth another look ! Lovely spotting Emily. I like pic 2 with the light through the bill - a touch of orange. I always wonder how they manage with their untidy sick nests.

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 11 years ago

Thank you wijnandr93! It was a very exciting spotting! I've never seen anything like it!

wijnandr
wijnandr 11 years ago

This is so cool :)

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 11 years ago

Grazie! ;)

Harsha Singh
Harsha Singh 11 years ago

Mama Mia. :)

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 11 years ago

Thank you again for the kind words Birdlady! I got so very lucky with these guys. I visited them almost every day for about 3 weeks and only on this one occasion did I see them displaying like this!

Adam S.
Adam S. 11 years ago

Awesome! Great photos!!

birdlady6000
birdlady6000 11 years ago

Photo #2 is incredible!

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 11 years ago

Thank you Krista!

KristaHerman
KristaHerman 12 years ago

Awesome series Emily. They are beautiful pictures.

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 12 years ago

thanks misako.hill

misako
misako 12 years ago

lovely!

Ava T-B
Ava T-B 12 years ago

Those entwined necks in #2 are gorgeous; I've never seen GBH doing mating displays so thanks so much for this wonderful series.
Also please consider putting this spotting in the Animal Architecture mission at http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8082...

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 12 years ago

Thank you Karen and thank you everyone!

KarenL
KarenL 12 years ago

Absolutely stunning shots Emily! Well done!

ulvalactuca77
ulvalactuca77 12 years ago

That's awesome.

EmilyMarino
EmilyMarino 12 years ago

Thanks everyone!

And thank you Christy, these guys are are at the corner of 108th and Westmoor. Just west of Wadsworth up by me! They are not very fearful either. I was able to get comfortably close (for all involved) One of the males even did a fly by. He flew within a couple feet of me, realized I wasn't a threat and continued his mating display!

Seema
Seema 12 years ago

Marvellous

Sachin Zaveri
Sachin Zaveri 12 years ago

All three are fantastic pictures,

ChristyHolland
ChristyHolland 12 years ago

Emily, these are stunning!! Easily frame-able! Where were these? I absolutely love the one with the entwined necks! I love spring!!! (you should read my story on the robin I just posted! Aaaaahhhh...spring!)

Atul
Atul 12 years ago

lovely series!

DonnaPomeroy
DonnaPomeroy 12 years ago

Wonderful!

EmilyMarino
Spotted by
EmilyMarino

Colorado, USA

Spotted on Mar 9, 2012
Submitted on Mar 9, 2012

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