Tag Archives: Great Blue Heron

Love Triangle

“The Rest of the Story”

Here is the rest of the romantic story from yesterdays post.  The male on the right is the one that is working bringing in the materials for the nest.  The one on the left is the one who is having the fun.  The female in the middle innocently looks on.  Oh well!

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An Unhappy Pair

Nesting Blue Herons – Florida

One year ago, I and a couple of great friends were getting ready to go down to Florida to photograph at the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. I am not a wildlife photographer, even though I work hard at it when I get a chance. What I enjoy the most is just watching the bird or animal behavior.  If a good image comes to me, I will gladly receive it.

We watched this pair of herons at a wetlands reserve between Titusville and Orlando.  They had quite an interesting behavior pattern.  The female (the one behind) was not a very faithful partner.  The male would leave the female to gather more twigs to build the nest.  While he was away, another male would fly in and mate with the female.  The first male would see the other and rush in with his beak filled with a branch chasing the second male away.  He would stay in the nest with ruffled feathers for a while, then go back out and collect more branches.  As soon as he left, the other male would fly back in.  This occurred over and over while we watched the show. 

I may be imagining this, to me it looks like the male in the foreground looks a little pissed off, while the female looks a little bored and disgruntled.

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Flying Birds – Phase II (Medium)

Nesting Great Blue Herons

Now things are getting a little more difficult.  The heron’s flight path was erratic and now I had to worry about timing and composure within the frame.  Here, I was trying to capture a specific action of the male landing to bring the female branches to make a nest.  I made a lot of errors including not leaving enough room at the edges of the frame.  Many of my images clipped the wings of the heron as he landed.  Also, I had a difficult time focusing on the main subject.  There were many other things going on around me and I would try to capture them as well.  I missed several opportunities to capture special actions of this couple.

There is also a little story behind these two love birds.  Even though the male was working hard to bring the female twigs for the nest, she was not very faithful.  When he would fly to get more twigs, another male would fly in and “do its thing”.  The first male would quickly fly back to chase the second one away.  It was rather comical to watch their behavior.

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