This week's Crops & Clips: Tricolored Heron

Around sunrise, a Tricolored Heron flew in and settled on an abandoned dock in the mitigation wetlands preserve next to our South Florida subdivision. It was too dark for decent photos, but I shot a sequence as it landed. They came out soft and blurry (ISO 1600, 1/800 sec at f/5.6) , but because the bird appeared so graceful, I could not bring myself to discard them. After much post-processing I recovered these images.









The heron then started to preen its feathers.



Here is another photo that needed "doctoring." It is actually an overlay of two photos of the same bird:



They were called "Louisiana Herons" in my early field guides, but they are not restricted to that State and they do display three prominent colors: red, white and blue. This youngster has more extensive rufous color on its neck than an adult, but it posed beautifully for me, reminding me of a John James Audubon painting!



Here is one in nice morning light:



They are common visitors to the edge of the lake at our back lawn.



Only about 20 feet away from our patio, I often must back up to include the entire bird in the viewfinder, as I do not have a zooming lens.



Insects make up a large portion of its diet. This Tricolored is stalking a Halloween Pennant dragonfly (click on photo to see location of the insect):



The heron crept stealthily towards the dragonfly, but it escaped the bird's grasp.



Video:The Tricolored Heron's foraging habits are quite distinctive:

If you see a blank area below, try clicking  HERE 



This video compares foraging habits of Tricolored and Little Blue Herons, side by side. Click HERE here if it does not load.