p.1 #1 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
I've been making weekly trips to a great blue heron rookery to observe the rituals of these amazingly graceful birds and the progress of their babies. Photos below reflect a fraction of this experience.
I'll organize the post in 4 parts: nesting and rituals, young babies, older babies, and fledging. Whenever the pictures look orangey, they were taken in first morning light.
There are 36 nests at the heronry and it is located in the middle of a swamp; I wore hip waders to get there. First and last photos show the environment a bit better.
1
2
3
4 - stretching the neck to greet the mate who just arrived at the nest
p.1 #2 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
Young babies.
In 18, I saw a commotion at one of the nests and the adult all of a sudden pulled out this humongous headless fish. Herons are not ospreys and do not bring headless fish to the nest - no idea where it came from. Down the hatch it went.
13
14
15
16
17
18 - you're going to swallow THAT, dad?!
19 - can still do this display while the babies are young
20
21
22
23 - regurgitating food
24 - cleaning beak after dealing with the babies :)
p.1 #3 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
Older kids.
In 28, they are fighting over a nice chunk of fish. Amazingly enough, the guy at the bottom won!
In 29, the baby on the left was incessantly bullied and spent most of the time hanging off the side of the nest. When parents arrived with food, it didn't even bother fighting. This is a rare moment when this guy is trying to get up and stretch the wings; a beatdown followed shortly thereafter.
Different nests at the rookery had babies at very different stages of development. Older babies were flapping their wings, practicing hunting motions, and even wandering to nearby branches like the guy in #31. In 32, one of these guys lost his balance during yet another altercation and ended up in the marsh.
p.1 #4 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
Great series. I appreciate you taking the time to document all this. I like that first photo a lot. I am not impressed with their nest building ability. Eagles have such massive deep nests and the Heron's nests always seem rather small for such big birds. It is a wonder that more young ones don't fall out.
p.1 #5 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
When I came a week later, I found two young herons clumsily moving around the swamp. In 35-37, the fledgling tried to fly to a nearby log but ran out of steam, landed in the water, and then did this awkward hop.
Young herons were very serious about their hunting. They looked just like adults doing it - but came up a little short. #40 and #43 were the best catches I've seen.
Luckily, some trees in the marsh were slanted and it was possible to walk up to almost the nest level and then fly over. That's what one of the fledglings did to get back to the nest. Some real food to be had there!
That's all Folks! Very sorry about posting too many photos.
p.1 #6 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
Photog Guy wrote:
Great series. I appreciate you taking the time to document all this. I like that first photo a lot. I am not impressed with their nest building ability. Eagles have such massive deep nests and the Heron's nests always seem rather small for such big birds. It is a wonder that more young ones don't fall out.
p.1 #8 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
Wow, what an amazing set, I feel like I just a book on heron breeding! I love the opening shot, it sets the stage so well for what's coming after it. This one was a lot of fun, great job!
p.1 #10 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
birdied wrote:
What a marvelous set !!! Great seeing all the different stages of development. I think these are beautiful birds and you showed all their beauty.
Birdie
Thank you so much, Birdie!
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Tim Kuhn wrote:
Wow, what an amazing set, I feel like I just a book on heron breeding! I love the opening shot, it sets the stage so well for what's coming after it. This one was a lot of fun, great job!
Tim
Thank you, Tim!!
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morris wrote:
Wonderful documentary! Super photos and fascinating to watch in a single post
Morris
Thank you very much, Morris! I'm really glad that you liked seeing them all in one place - it didn't feel right to post them separately...
p.1 #13 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
Thanks for sharing such impressive images of aspects of their lives I haven't yet witnessed. No need to apologize for the quantity when the quality and variety are of this caliber.
p.1 #15 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
louie champan wrote:
Terrific set you’ve documented this sequence very nicely.
Thank you very much, Louie!
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AGeoJO wrote:
What a superb documentation and impressively photographed series, OSP!
Joshua
Thank you, Joshua!!
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ElvisD wrote:
Thanks for sharing such impressive images of aspects of their lives I haven't yet witnessed. No need to apologize for the quantity when the quality and variety are of this caliber.
Thank you so much, Elvis! This was so different from just observing them hunting...
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dclark wrote:
Terrific set of images! They are all excellent. It was good to have a lot of images since they tell an interesting story. Thanks for posting them.
p.1 #16 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
Tim Kuhn wrote:
Wow, what an amazing set, I feel like I just a book on heron breeding! I love the opening shot, it sets the stage so well for what's coming after it. This one was a lot of fun, great job!
p.1 #20 · Great Blue Herons: From Hatching to Fledging
mbphotographer wrote:
The perspective on that first pic is great! Grabbed my attention immidiately!
Thank you!!
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kmunroe wrote:
all are very nice Vladimir
Thank you very much, Kenny!
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Photog Guy wrote:
No need to apologize for posting so many. This is a great post. I just showed this to my wife and she really enjoyed it also.
Phil
Thank you so much for your kind words, Phil! I'm really glad that she enjoyed it as well!
It's awesome that you looked at this thread again - you probably did not see the fledging pictures the first time around and I thought they were hilarious and touching at the same time. Thanks again!
