Fall Colors

Unwilling to sit home all alone, I drove to Theler Wetlands Friday morning even though it wasn’t particularly sunny and I had no great hopes of seeing many birds because birding is slow this time of year.

I was greeted, though, by a Marsh Hawk flying remarkably close, a bird I seldom see here:

Northern Harrier

I was also pleased to see that the Great Blue Herons have returned in larger numbers now that the breeding season is over. Since my hard drive is already full of GBH shots, I tried to find a new way of seeing one, and I liked this one that resembles a giraffe or a Brontosaurus:

Great Blue heron

I was also struck by the brown and white chest feathers, which are quite similar in appearance to both the green heron and the American Bittern. There must be a survival benefit to this pattern or it would seem quite unlikely such dissimilar birds would all share this characteristic.

There really weren’t many birds, though. The Canadian Geese haven’t returned and most songbirds, including the Cedar Waxwings were absent. Of course, it’s times like this that I begin to search more thoroughly and almost always see something I haven’t seen before, like this rather large frog that blended in so well with the fallen leaves that I had a hard time locating him in my telephoto lens.

Orange Frog

Of course, it wouldn’t be Fall without an obligatory shot of leaves, would it?

Fall Leaves

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