It looked like another slow day at Nisqually until a lady from Castle Rock asked me if I’d seen the Snowy Egret. I hadn’t, and I wasn’t really looking for one since they’re quite rare around here, so rare that my regular local birding book doesn’t even list them.
Once she told me that it had been spotted in the general area we were in, I did spot it, a long ways out, too far out to get a good picture. At that distance it looked like the egret that I’d seen here last year, and I wasn’t too excited, figuring I’d never get as good of a picture as the ones I already had.
I did take a few pictures, but wasn’t overly excited about them. About then, though, a hawk flew over and spooked the egret which, wisely, chose to fly closer to the people. Only then did I realize that it wasn’t the same bird that I’d seen last year. In fact, I’ve never gotten a picture of one of these, though they were fairly common in Northern California.
I stuck around nearly a half hour taking pictures and ended up with several different poses that I liked. The first of them
was the closest he got, but he made sure that he was on the other side of a wide body of water.
Later when he apparently got tired of me taking his picture, he flew off to settle in the top of a tree and preen
I was so intent on getting some good pictures of the egret that I missed what may have been my best chance yet to get a close-up of a Green Heron, one that I accidentally flushed while trying to creep up on the egret. It’s amazingly difficult to be totally aware, isn’t it? I guess I’ll just have to settle for trying to be a little more aware every day.