I spent part of my last day in Santa Rosa walking around Lake Ralphine and Spring Lake in hopes of getting a better picture of the Snowy Egret and of the Night Heron I’d gotten so close to that I could not focus my lens before it flew away.
On my first visit I had been greeted by a Green Heron; on this visit I was greeted by another favorite, this Acorn Woodpecker.
Unlike the Green Heron who immediately struck a great pose, I had to spend most of an hour trying to capture a single good shot of the Acorn Woodpecker.
I wouldn’t expect otherwise, though, in the middle of acorn harvest season.
The trees were full of migrating songbirds, though it’s a lot harder to get a good shot of a small bird flitting back-and-forth eating insects than it is of a large woodpecker. This is one of my better shots of a female Yellow Warbler.
Strangely, I didn’t see a single egret throughout the morning, but I did catch a glimpse of the Night Heron, looking across at a small island.
Although I first read about Night Herons at the Colorado zoo, it was here at Spring Lake that I first saw one. Considering the large number of people walking here daily, it’s amazing how many different birds I’ve observed here.