Friday, December 16, 2005

Someone Else Having a Really Bad Day...

I'm out driving on a local highway, through a stretch of swampy, woodsy property, when I see a large bird with a rather languid flight pattern coming over the treetops.

"That almost looks like a great blue heron," I think to myself.

I look again.

It is a great blue heron.

Great blue herons are not supposed to be here in December.

Poor, cold, hungry heron. I hope it has a stretch of shallow open water somewhere.

(Thanks, USGS, for the heron pic.)
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:37 AM

    Your Heron looks very like our grey heron. But it might be bigger. Ours stay around all year, though frozen rivers, ponds etc. don't help it.

    I hope your heron finds somewhere with food.

    Are you a bird watcher, or do you just know about herons?

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  2. LutheranChik2:11 PM

    Oh, I love birding! As you can see, I even do it commuting (one of the best ways to see the local fauna anyway.)

    Our great blue herons have a black crest -- you can't see it too well in this photo -- that I don't think your herons have. And I'm not sure about the size differential.

    Interesting factoid: Herons were a bird sacred to Freya, Germanic goddess of love. (Of course, pigs were also sacred to Freya -- not quite as lovely a totem animal.)

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