Herons up close and personal

Once in a while, as you drive or walk past a lake, river, or some marsh, you might notice a tall gray/blue bird standing on the bank looking at the water.  That's a Great Blue Heron, one of the most graceful birds in our area. For a large bird, they are surprisingly common and easy to spot. However, they are still wild and it's hard to approach them. By luck or some trick of wind, I've managed to get close to a few in the hundred times that I've seen them. And - what do you know - I have some pictures to prove it!









The one below is also a Great Blue Heron, but a juvenile.



As long as we are on the subject of herons, there are two other types of them in our area that most people never see. That's because they are nocturnal, and mostly active only around sunrise or sunset. They are not as tall and graceful, but because it's still very hard to get their close-up shots, I thought I'd post them here.

This is a Yellow-crowned Night Heron. I came across it last year in a Westchester park. It was almost tame and let me get pretty close.


This is the same type of bird but a juvenile. This (and all other pictures below) were taken from behind a bird blind in Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.





Taking the cuteness factor down one level more, this is a Black-crowned Night Heron:

And this is a juvenile: