Month: January 2014

As if Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets weren’t enough, I’ve also started seeing Night Herons in Santa Rosa in recent years. I’ve always seen them at Spring Lake before, but on this trip I only saw them at Lake Ralphine. In fact, I saw one of on the very first day near the dam on Lake Ralphine, in the same spot where most of the fishermen usually sit.

In fact, I was quite surprised to see a Night Heron wading not more than a few feet from the fisherman and his line.

In the past they’ve seemed like fairly shy birds, though like American Bittern and Green Herons, they will often freeze when you approach them, rather than bolting.

There was even a second Night Heron nearby, sitting in the tree right above the other Night Heron.

It’s hard to tell where those eyes are looking, but it didn’t seem disturbed at all by my presence, quite confident I couldn’t reach him through the dense branches. He was right, I barely managed to get a shot through all those branches.

When I returned, the two night herons were no longer at the end of the lake by the dam, but had, instead, moved to the other end of the lake . This was the first time I ever saw a Night Heron actually standing on land.

Of course, when I circled the end of the lake to try to get a better picture of it, it had flown across the lake and was perched in dense branches, content to stare down at me from its relative safety.

I was disappointed that I never saw a Green Heron on my four visits to the lakes, but it was hard to be too disappointed when I did see Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, and Night Herons, all birds I never get to see in Pacific Northwest.

For years when I saw a flash of white in the distance, I wondered whether I was seeing a Snowy Egret or Great Egret. After all, I hardly ever see either up in the Pacific Northwest where the Great Blue Heron dominates the wetlands. In the beginning the two looked quite similar to me, especially at a distance.

Gradually I learned to recognize the feathery appearance of the Snowy Egret, which only led to further confusion if I happened to see a Great Egret when it’s coat was blowing in the wind:

Once you see a Great Egret and a Snowy Egret standing near each other, however, it’s nearly impossible to ever confuse them again. This Great Egret

and this Snowy Egret were standing feet away from each other a the end of Lake Ralphine.

I avoided my usual cropping to show their relative size to each other. And, if you look carefully you can see that the color of the beaks and legs are also, strangely enough, reversed in the two. Hard to confuse the two.

Photographically, I’ve fallen in love with the feathery brightness of the Snowy Egret, but that doesn’t mean I don’t continue to appreciate the noble stature of the Great Egret

or marvel at its ability to effortlessly and quietly through the dense underbrush while stalking prey.

Since Jeff, Leslie and Margaret were constantly with Mary during her hospice care and there was little for me to do, I decided to visit Spring Lake, one of Mary and Doug’s favorite places and one of the first places they took me to visit when I first met them some seventeen years ago. I don’t think I was too impressed on that first visit — it was, after all, a rather small lake compared to those we have in the Pacific Northwest. But over time, I have become quite fond of the walk around Lake Ralphine and Spring Lake, particularly since I’ve taken up bird watching in the last five or six years.

On my Monday walk, the first of four walks during the week, I was greeted by a Snowy Egret in exactly the same spot I’d taken pictures of one previously. Since we don’t have Snowy Egrets in the Pacific Northwest, I never pass up the chance to get new shots, particularly when they’re as indifferent to my presence as this one was. In fact, it took considerable effort to get far enough away to get anything but a close up like this first shot of it.

When I did get far enough away to get a full frame shot, the bird nearly disappeared into the shadows, but I still thought this was a striking shot.

After about ten minutes of fishing, the egret waded to the other side of the island where the lighting was better, almost good enough, though not quite, to capture the small fish in its beak.

I’ll have to admit that this Snowy Egret seemed so at home on this stretch of shore that I took it for granted that it would also be there when I came back during the rest of the week. Otherwise, I’m sure I would stayed and taken more shots.

As it turned out, that assumption was wrong. I didn’t see the Snowy Egret in the same place the rest of the week. In fact, I only saw it in the distance on my next three visits,

and barely glimpsed it as flew away as I approached on my last sighting.

Another reminder that its best not to take anything for granted in life; nothing lasts forever.