Sunday, August 2, 2009

Herons



Some things I notice because they've changed, but sometimes I wonder if it's just something that's always been the same but I've just never noticed it before. Thus it is with the great blue heron. In the past couple of years, I've seen several of these birds along this part of the Ohio River. I'm pretty sure they're new to the area, as I can't recall seeing many of them in the 1970s or 1980s.

Or maybe it's the same bird that gets around well.

It's hard to get a good shot of them when your longest lens is 150 mm. Still, I got this one about a year ago while I was at old Lock and Dam 27 waiting for the Delta Queen to pass by on its last trip down the Ohio. I have another photo in my collection of this bird on this wall with the DQ in the background.

2 comments:

michelle said...

I'd missed this post somehow.

Fifteen years ago, we used to see these birds at some of the lakes close to the area, but we never saw them when we'd boat on the river.

It seemed like, about the time the seadoos (sp?) and such became popular on the lakes, we saw less and less of the bigger birds. Sometimes we'd see one at an overflow (where no jet skis or boats were), but it was rare and usually late in the evening.

But I don't recall ever seeing one on the river until very recently...year before last, I think it was.

tanstaafl said...

I think it was earlier this year, but it may have been last year, there were three great blues that stayed around my place here on Rt. 10 fr a while. I figured from their flight patterns that they were staying around Beech Fork Lake. One morning as I sat in my front swing, they all three flew in from the northwest, over me and landed in a large oak that sits on the high bank above Davis Creek. I watched them with binoculars for about a half hour, then went in the house to get my camera. Naturally, when I came back out they were gone.

Another bird that I have not seen lately is the bittern that used to stay n the creek beside my house. He was a regular for five or six years and then just never returned.