feeding time .....
I was recently down at Venice Rookery and able to get some photos of a Great Blue Heron mother and her two kids at feeding time. There was a big display of excitement and affection and lots of clacking noise before they finally got to eat. There’s 22 pictures and I hope you don't mind so many, but I don’t think I’ve ever shown this before and they are pretty cool if you like stuff like this. Follow the photos through to the last 4 and you will see what they got. Don’t jump to the end, because the greeting and affection is pretty neat to see, too, the way they use their bills and necks and rub their heads against the parent …. much like a human would do.
I spotted right away two pretty good sized immature Great Blue Heron babies in the nest. I walked the whole way around the pond and didn’t see any other juveniles, so these two must have been the first born at the rookery back in January, I’m going to guess. Anyway, they were alone in the nest anxiously waiting and watching for mama to return for quite a long time.
Finally mama flew in. I’m just assuming this is mama returning to the nest, but it could very well be the papa. But for the sake of argument and because this is my story, I’m going to say this is Mama.
This greeting and affection all went on for quite a while, about 10 or 15 minutes.
For a while, I had noticed she had something in her throat and was moving her neck in such a way that I knew she was regurgitating something for the kids to eat.
Check out what came forth ….
The fish had hardly dropped to the bottom of the nest before mama flew off. It’s got to take a lot of work to keep birds this size fed and I'm sure both parents work on doing this. My camera club group is going down there next Saturday, and I bet the babies have fledged. I know right where their nest is, so that is the first thing I am going to check when I get there.
I spotted right away two pretty good sized immature Great Blue Heron babies in the nest. I walked the whole way around the pond and didn’t see any other juveniles, so these two must have been the first born at the rookery back in January, I’m going to guess. Anyway, they were alone in the nest anxiously waiting and watching for mama to return for quite a long time.
Finally mama flew in. I’m just assuming this is mama returning to the nest, but it could very well be the papa. But for the sake of argument and because this is my story, I’m going to say this is Mama.
This greeting and affection all went on for quite a while, about 10 or 15 minutes.
For a while, I had noticed she had something in her throat and was moving her neck in such a way that I knew she was regurgitating something for the kids to eat.
Check out what came forth ….
The fish had hardly dropped to the bottom of the nest before mama flew off. It’s got to take a lot of work to keep birds this size fed and I'm sure both parents work on doing this. My camera club group is going down there next Saturday, and I bet the babies have fledged. I know right where their nest is, so that is the first thing I am going to check when I get there.