The wood stork was on the lawn yesterday. I have been seeing it in Raccoon’s Cove, Otter Bay, Heron Inlet, Deer Pass Stork’s Rest for several days. That really is a little bit of paradise over there. Yesterday’s offerings were consumed by all the brightly colored flowers from the day before, so I didn’t get to the stork. But here he is. On the lawn of the backyard, yet again.
He also showed up again, today. And hunted for a long ways along the the opposite shoreline. This was a first for me.
Here is one with his bill/beak open, searching. I didn’t see him catch anything, but he was very interesting to watch. He takes these extremely slow, ponderous steps keeping his foot elevated for a loooooong moment. Then does the thing the snowy egret does, vibrating his feet in the water to stir it up.
He also would do a balance thing with his left wing at odd moments. As you can see, this move doesn’t seem to require it. But perhaps it: he looks quite balanced without that wing up. I can’t work out why he ever thought it necessary, but he did it several times.
There was an egg on the lawn yesterday after (s)he and the great white heron and several ibis as well as ducks had been in that area. It might be too small an egg for this bird, but I don’t know. I couldn’t find much out in my cursory online search. This is about the size of an extra large chicken egg, as designated by the supermarkets. The egg remains there today.
Finally, from yesterday comes this bird which I have tentatively identified as the palm warbler. I can’t quite make it stick in my brain, but I do know for a fact that this is not the eastern phoebe.
Yesterday I also realized two things about an old companion. The green heron. The surprising thing I realized about this bird, below, the green heron is that it is indeed green. It has a mossy green back, but you have to see it in the right light. Those unadorned feathers down its back, above the wings, are quite mossy green in color. Not the green I think of when I think ‘green’. I would not have named him the green heron.
He is very similar i his face to the black crowned night heron (also, why add ‘night’ to that, I wonder?) The other surprising thing is that the bird has a very long neck. I only see it immediately after it lands when it is still settling from flight, or when it is about to take off. I have it on video but not stills, I think.
That’s catching up to where we are now, today. Yeah!
- Aperture: ƒ/6.3
- Camera: COOLPIX P900
- Focal length: 285mm
- ISO: 400
- Shutter speed: 1/200s