Nice Flight/Tough Landing

Last week I saw this Great Blue Heron come gliding in across the oyster beds in the salt marsh. The flight went smoothly, the landing appeared OK initially, but another blue heron was waiting to jump the new arrival. Rougher flight than expected!

8 thoughts on “Nice Flight/Tough Landing”

    • The blue herons are like that. Two birds can be fishing 100 yards apart in the marsh and all is quiet. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, one heron will fly over to harass the other. They seemingly can’t help themselves.

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  2. The second and third photos, showing those ruffled up feathers, are grand! Could there have been a little dispute over territory involved with the second bird? I noticed its lores are a touch green, to go along with those head feathers. Here comes the mating season!

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    • It is mating season which invariably means extra disputes but it’s also hard to tell in a way. Blue herons are like snowy egrets in the sense that they don’t seem to need a specific reason to fly over to where another bird is fishing and start an argument. The sad part about these photos was the last part. That entire battle, although quick, happened right in front of me and I was choked because I had too much lens as you can see parts of the bird were cut off. If I had a shorter lens on I would have got the whole thing.

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    • The blue herons are my favorite among the wading birds (well, maybe next to spoonbills) they are always up to something including fussing with one another over territory or some other imagined incident. They almost always have a comment too even when just leaving one area to try a different fishing hot spot.

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