The Night Heron Show

I needed to go photographing! So I made myself a deal.....if I got yard work done on Sunday, I could go photographing on Monday. The yard looked go, so Monday morning I headed down to my favorite spot.
As soon as I got out of the car, I could hear the distinct call of the avocet. As you may recall, there had been 2 young avocets last time I was there. I'm not sure but I think this is one of the young avocets.....

and here is mom. 

                    The great blue heron was close by just hanging out......it was nice and calm, so I got lots of reflection shots.

 I moved along and found momma mallard and her babes. Pretty darn cute......

       The snowy egrets are still around. I never get tired of seeing them :)

    And just down the path were some more baby mallards. This one was so close, I could have touched him/her.

 Of course I was hoping to see one of the night herons and there he was....hanging out in one of his favorite spots.

Now I started looking for momma wood duck and there she was. Amazingly, she still has all 4 of her young! 

  The fourth baby wood duck was off to the left in this pic. I was hoping to be able to see what sex the babies are but that wasn't the case. May be next time I go down, it will be more obvious.

 Most places I go photographing have dragonflys buzzing around. I absolutely love these amazing creatures but they are quite challenging to photograph as they never seem to stop flying around. 


So this dragonfly happened to land on the path in front of me. Photographing a dragonfly sitting on dirt is not a great pic, so I asked the dragonfly to land somewhere more photogenic. So he flew over to the fence railing and posed for me.....sweet!

 As I made my way around the lake, one of the egrets was perched on a branch. He preened for a bit then relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful day......

 I continued on and found one of my night heron friends looking for breakfast.

      After photographing this one, I looked to my left and saw another one of the herons

       They got pretty close and all seemed well until.......

    Seems the young one violated some night heron code and got his butt kicked by the older one.

        He only flew about 20-30 ft away and then they both got back to fishing.....




        It was only 9 am but already too hot, so I headed home to edit photos and try to stay cool!