Herons come in several different shapes and sizes. There’s the tall and elegant crowd, like the stark white Great Egrets, or the bulky and imposing Great Blue Herons, and then there are the shorter, chunkier kinds, like the Green Heron and the Black-crowned Night-heron. It’s these latter two that I’ve been seeing most frequently lately at Atascadero Lake.
I rarely go to the lake on weekends because of how crowded and noisy it can be, but it’s not always like that. Last Sunday I stopped by on my way home from Morro Bay and it was nice and quiet. Even though it was a bit later than normal, so the sun was higher in the sky, there weren’t as many people and dogs as there often are. What’s more, the bird mix was ever so slightly different than it is on my usual early-morning visits. Fewer species, perhaps, but those that were out were a bit more conspicuous. And since it was the weekend, I was under no time pressure to get to my desk and start the workday.
As I was waiting on one of the rocky beaches that dot the shoreline of the lake, a young Green Heron wandered up. He was so intent on fishing for his brunch that he kept walking closer and closer to me–so close that eventually I couldn’t even fit the bird in the frame of my long lens!
On weekdays I have to be sure to get to the lake early, before the park maintenance team gets a chance to fire up their leaf blowers. This means I usually have a bit less light (but when it does get there, it’s during the golden hour and it’s amazing!). Since I have to head back home to get to work, I’m usually a bit pressed for time, so I have to keep moving in order not to spend all morning birding.
This morning, though, because I got there so early, I was able to linger in a few of the nicer spots, and at one of them, I caught the arrival of a Green Heron on the beach. The scene is still in shadow because the sun is behind the trees behind me, but today’s cameras capture so much information that it’s almost trivial to get usable images out of them:
It’s really helpful to get to the lake early enough on a weekday, to take a bit more time, which always helps the wildlife come to you. That happened to me this morning, when I started birding by 6:15, just after sunrise. I was able to spend a fair amount of time on a couple of the beachside locations that afford good views of the sky (in case of swallows and swifts) and the water (for ducks, coots, etc.) and the shore itself (for shorebirds and herons).
This morning, after years of picturing them roosting in the trees or standing stock-still in the shallow nearshore water, I finally caught a Black-crowned Night-heron with its breakfast still in its mouth! Needless to say, the bird didn’t really appreciate being watched while eating, so it quickly flew around the corner to enjoy its meal in peace, but not before I was able to catch a couple of decent images:
