Dragonflies and Herons

Within the past eight days I walked around my favorite place, the lake, three times. High school started almost two weeks ago and since Kaefer (a freshman!) has zero period this year, I can be at the lake by 7 am. It's very quiet at that time, not very many people apart from some dog walkers, joggers and, of course, bird watchers.

All the three mornings I got there were completely different. The first time was a foggy morning, so typical for this region. The second morning was sunny and bright, and today was an overcast, rather grey morning. So the atmosphere was always different - the birds, however, were not, although I suspect they prefer the grey, foggy mornings to appear. The sunny mornings bring the dragonflies.

So if you like birds and dragonflies, this post is for you.

The foggy morning

This great blue heron I can imagine in a Japanese painting, it was so quiet and peaceful. But then another great blue heron appeared and chased the "intruder" away.

A little bit later I found another great blue heron in a little bay of the lake (can you see the algae? An annual summer problem - it doesn't look too bad, but it stinks!). It was a pretty young heron, and he was determined to catch some breakfast.

He was successful and caught this crayfish. It took him some time though to swallow that big guy.

Was this black-crowned night heron admiring his beautiful appearance?

These two egrets seemed to be happy just to have each other.

Near the boat ramp seems to be a popular hang out spot for juvenile herons, both green herons and black-crowned night herons.

The sunny morning

Here is one of the younger black-crowned night herons again. Quite the pretty guy, don't you think?

The adult version - I love these birds.

You can see a flying black-crowned night heron in the top photo, on a the foggy morning.

Then I found the dragonflies.

They were zipping along over the lake and close to the edge.

Hard to photograph, I just got incredibly lucky with these shots.

I enjoyed "chasing" these fast fliers with my camera.

The grey morning

Yes, juvenile black-crowned night herons again.

They were sitting right in front of me and didn't care a bit.

The adult one again, almost in the same spot as on the sunny morning.

Another great blue heron.

 This one is older though as you can see by his plumes (you have to look closely).

Guess what this is?

 And this?

Yes, the same pair of juvenile black-crowned night herons.

Hanging out near the boat ramp.

They seemed to follow me around the lake this morning.

This one loved to play peek-a-boo.

And for your enjoyment - some duck butts.

These are the last photos for the August Break 2012. It was fun and sometimes challenging to find good images. You can see all of them on flickr if you want to.

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