Common Nature

In my last post I had pics of battling hummingbirds. Another thing they start doing is staking out the feeder and ambushing their competitors. This is a good opportunity for us to get some photos of them hanging out in the plant pots as normally they're in and out pretty quickly.

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We were having lunch one day when we looked out the window and realized a heron was about to chow down too. Unfortunately the fish it had caught seemed to be stuck. We were fascinated to see when we saw this photo that apparently it spears the fish through the gills. If you look closely you can see via the fish's throat that the heron's bill is all the way through.

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Some pics of a heron in a nearby woods with a creek.
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We got our first snow of the season yesterday, and I don't think the heron much appreciated it. I can't remember ever seeing one late in the year -- probably because when the lakes freeze over it can't fish. So I imagine it will be heading off as there is more snow today.

I'm also surprised the snow shows up so clearly -- but they were pretty thick flakes. ( Read more... )

Shortly after managing to down the first fish the heron very promptly managed to grab a second one with some slow stalking and a quick strike.( Read more... )

We first spotted these green heron about 6 years ago, but never saw them on our end of the lake. Last week there were two of them. Maybe newly grown chicks? ( Read more... )

We spotted a heron out on the lake last week -- luckily during an hour when it wasn't pouring rain. We got the camera out and to our amazement it caught and swallowed a fish, which we got photos of. I wasn't even aware we had anything in the lake but carp, but it looks like there are bluegill too. ( Read more... )

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We have a heron which is around during the summer. I haven't seen it during winter but it was around for a while hunting last week. ( Read more... )