Finally Blue…by Brad Marks

Greetings from the tundra – well, the Illinois tundra that is. We got a good 7 inches of snow yesterday on top of around 4 inches earlier in the week. My driveway looks like a classic West Point defensive position now being outlined by a 3 foot hardened ridge. The worst however is the temps came screaming down, bottoming out around -7F early this morning – windchills in the -24F range. If there was any hesitation to head south, that has been completely discarded. First a few more events to take care of. We had my families Christmas gathering just before this latest storm hit, Intrigued has their party coming up (lord help us ha), we have Linda’s family’s Christmas, then our Christmas and some final appointments to get out of the way first – one being hopefully the final release from my ankle surgeon (Bri needs to run). While I tend to all the logistics involved with those gatherings, I am going to have Brad take the helm and bring you another one of his adventures out east. Take care everyone, stay warm and may your hearts be merry this Christmas season.

Take it away Brad…

Being almost, but not quite, new to birding, I tend to trust the names of the birds to be descriptive.  The more Jan and I go out capturing our feathered friends on “film”, the more I learn the names may or may not describe the bird at all.  Or the characteristic described can only be seen when the bird has met its demise and is splayed out on a display board somewhere.

One of our first encounters with wading birds was in South Carolina a few years ago, we took photos of everything.  It was the first time I came within 19 photos of filling up a very large memory card (at least that’s what the counter on my camera told me) successfully squeezing over 3,700 images onto the card that day.  Downloading the photos later took quite a bit of time, as did recharging the camera batteries.  Jan and I were shooting from about 8 am until 4:30pm.  We weren’t shooting nonstop, but we did take nearly 7,500 photos from a single day’s outing spread across three cards.  This was way before Jan got her 200-500mm lens and was stuck using my 70-200mm with a 1.4x TC attached.  I was still using a monopod, which helped hold up the 200-500mm on my gripped D300; it does get heavy after a while. 

Sorting and categorizing the photos once we were home was a marathon event.  I ended up doing the sorting twice because I was only casually identifying the birds that looked different from the ones in the next set of images.  That’s when I learned that many of the juvenile versions look completely different from the adults.  Their names also do NOT help in the slightest in identifying juveniles.  Rookie mistake on my part.

This year, Jan and I finally saw an adult version of today’s bird that does indeed look like its name.

The day started out rather chilly in spite of being in what I would call the Nearly Deep South in February.  We had begun to traverse Laurel Hill Wildlife Drive at Savannah National Wildlife Refuge on the state line between South Carolina and Georgia.  Technically, we were standing in South Carolina by a couple hundred yards.  A winter wind was blowing that day, so we didn’t start out spending much time outside the car.  Near a small wind break Jan spotted something moving near the reeds at the edge the marsh. 

Hit the jump to see more of this “little boy blue”.

Almost letting me get the car stopped this time, she jumped out and started photographing.  Once the car was safely parked, I saw the same bird and started firing away with the camera.  At first glance, I thought it was a Tricolored Heron.  But as it began to wade through the water plants, I didn’t see two of the three advertised colors. 

That’s when I realized this was actually an adult Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea).  In blue, no less!  We had only ever seen them in their juvenile white plumage prior to this.  Juvenile Little Blues lose their white feathers after their first full year.  They go through a brief “calico” phase, when the colors are mixed and mottled, sporting partial juvenile and adult plumage, until their full set of adult feathers grows in.  The bird we saw must have been at least one year old.

We pause this story for an important safety tip.  Laurel Hill Wildlife Drive is a great place to see a wide variety of wading birds, ducks, swallows (if you can catch them), hawks and more.  This is a wildlife preserve and during warmer months you will also need to be mindful of American Alligators.  Cooler winter temperatures means that alligators are present, but not very interested in spending the energy for a quick tourist snack.  During all months of the year, visitors need to be mindful that “some” people (you know who you are) can be disrespectful of the preserve by speeding through at nearly highway speeds.  We had one car pass us going fast enough to leave a dust cloud behind them (aka. Roadrunner but no “meep meep”).  Jan and I were safely at the edge of the road when they went flying (pun intended) past.  Of course, our first thoughts were to protect the primary glass on the lenses from dust instead of photographing the license plates. 

Back to our regularly scheduled story.

Little Blues will eat most things they can catch including mainly small fish, but won’t turn down small amphibians, grasshoppers and other invertebrates.  Blues will forage, sometimes belly deep, in fresh, brackish, or saltwater wetlands.  That’s precisely where we found this one.  Neither Jan nor I checked the salinity of the water here so we don’t know specifically which type of water it was wading in.  As adults, they have been known to chase or attack other Little Blues or other wading birds to defend their territories.  Juveniles seem to get along with everyone.  That’s why in my preliminary pass through the bird photos; I thought it was just another Snowy Egret (should have looked at the feet).  Juvenile Little Blue Herons seem to be tolerated better by egrets than the adult versions in blue.

Even their own name is a little misleading.  While their colors are in the “blue” family, their head and neck are commonly a maroon color which lets in just a bit of “red” if you remember the color wheels from grade school.  To complete the ensemble, their legs are greenish with a pale blue bill tipped in black.  Imagine if you will, a heron dipping their bill into an ink well.  Well, that’s what it looked like.

I may have mentioned earlier, the morning was rather windy.  Jan and I were benefitting from a small stand of trees blocking most of the wind.  The water plants below the causeway didn’t seem to be affected by the wind at all.  However, medium height wading birds were, from time to time, surprised by a swirling wind.

I think that by this point, our subject was tired of having two large pieces of glass pointed in its general direction. 

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Little Blue Heron photos, please visit here.

Credits:

Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for many of the photos in this article.