I was down at Brick Pond last night. I hadn’t planned on going because the weatherman was calling for thunderstorms. But then I remembered that the weatherman couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a flashlight, so why am I depending on him? I grabbed my gear and headed down to the pond.
It was a hot afternoon and I was sweating when I got to the blind. And guess who was waiting for me? Big Mama…. Click on the images to enlarge
Giving me the old stink eye…..
I had just enough time to get my camera out of my pack to get this image. I think she watched me sweating my way up the trail and decided to wait for me to see her before she took off. But she just slowly walked down the log and hopped into the water and leisurely made her way into the pond.
But that gave me time to get set up and be ready for the next guests…. Green Herons are funny birds. They are the smallest of the herons in our area, but they can make the most noise! And there is a whole family of them down at Brick, at least 6 that I know of.
Yada, Yada, Yada…….
And this one is a juvenile. You can tell by what’s left of his downy feathers on the top of his head. But he kept me company for quite a while by showing me his ineptness at catching anything that resembled food. He was an expert at catching sticks and twigs though. These birds have probably never seen live food before, just what gets regurgitated for him in the nest. So they need to learn the hard way about catching their own prey and it takes a while…..
Wow! Is that what food looks like????
Maybe I’ll do better from up high…..
But these guys were just the warmup for the main event…. the babies!!!!
I have been very fortunate this year to see an incredible number of young birds, of all kinds. But tonight was like hitting the lottery. Not only did I see the young herons, but now baby Wood ducks?? I’m so glad the weatherman screwed up again!
Submarine move…..
I had seen a Merganser chick do the exact same thing last week and I just thought it was a fluke, but now I’m not sure. Maybe this is the latest hashtag trick for ducks???
more and more….
And soon I had all my ducks in a row……. I can’t believe I said that…..
In the next pic below, Mom looks really proud of her kids….. or am I being too anthropomorphic? Too bad, it’s my blog!!!!
Yep, these are all mine…… I think…
And it didn’t stop there! Pretty soon everybody was trying to crawl under Mom!!!
And it looked like Mom was about ready to burst!!!
Now I think the next pic is by far the best one, even with the damn branch in the way! The look on the little one’s face on the left is priceless!!
But all good things must come to an end…… Mom spotted me and the that was the end of that! The Mom train pulled out and didn’t look back!
Sayonara!!!!
All in all, it was a great night considering I almost didn’t come out! Lesson learned……..
I hope you enjoy these as much as I did!!!! Thanks for looking!
