The Howland
Picture Pages: Green Heron The Howland
Picture Pages: Green HeronPage by Royce
Last update: $Date: 2004/10/29 21:51:53 $ (UTC)
The Green Heron (Butorides virescens) is a small, stocky member of the Heron family. Seen in isolation, these birds' green and reddish coloration might lead a person to think they should really stand out in the field. However it is quite the opposite. The combination of coloring, typically compact stance and a wary nature usually mean that good views of Green Herons can be tough to come by as they stand still or wade through shallow, reedy water looking for small fish, amphibians and invertebrates. On the other hand, Green Herons do like to perch on rocks or tree limbs out in the open, so it is possible to see them in this manner if nothing else. But get too close (say, within 100 meters or so in my experience :~) and likely they will immediately fly away.
The normal range for this species in the summer is along creeks and ponds of the western U.S. coast and eastern states. Wintering grounds are along the southern coast of the U.S. (both east and west) and points further south. There is almost no natural range for Green Herons in Canada outside of southern Ontario, so most of our sightings of these herons have been in the southern U.S. However we were fortunate to get a good viewing of one off-range juvenile Green Heron in Calgary; photos of this individual are featured on this page. While a Green Heron certainly is a very unusual visitor to Calgary, solitary individuals of the species are known to wander quite far abroad from their normal range.
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We saw this juvenile Green Heron at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary (IBS) in Calgary on September 25, 2004. The bird was originally reported on September 20, although it may have been present for a considerable amount of time previous to that. The last reported sighting that we know of was on October 6, just before the first hard freeze (-7 C) which occurred that very night as I recall. I heard that the bird was successfully banded early in the last week it was seen. When the rare bird alert first went around concerning this heron, we starting visiting IBS almost immediately to look for it. Even though several people had seen it, the sanctuary actually contains quite a bit of suitable habitat, not all of it accessible to the public. Thus it took several tries before we located the heron in a good spot, which is where this series of photos was taken. The southeast-most part of the walking path at IBS runs parallel to the Bow River. At one point there is a small inlet that creates a sheltered spot of shallow, flowing water bordered by reeds and brushy woods. It was here that the heron became most predictably located for a period of several days in late September and early October. The food in this spot was evidently excellent, and we observed the bird eating its fill on three separate occasions. The menu consisted largely of small fish but no doubt some amphibians as well. The heron also appeared to take grasshoppers from the reeds along the bank. This sequence of four shots, each taken with my main digiscoping setup, shows the Green Heron in one of its favorite spots in the inlet, wading amongst some vegetation from which it plucked many a snack.
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In this image, the Green Heron peers through a break in the vegetation covering the water, looking for something tasty. The bird was equally adept at taking prey either while standing motionless, or while actively wading through the shallows. The day was bright but with a light, uniform cloud cover that made for good photography conditions. Here, the bird is very near the far bank of the inlet, at a distance of perhaps 20 meters, while our vantage point on the walking path along the near bank was no more than a couple of meters above water level. We had some tree cover, but undoubtedly the bird knew people were present. It nevertheless displayed a remarkable lack of concern for our presence in comparison to other Green Herons I have encountered. Possibly this can be put down to the fact that it is a juvenile and lacking a full sense of caution about humans.
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Characteristic of a true predator, from this angle it looks like the Green Heron has binocular vision. We can also see in part the long, heron type neck which in many cases in not evident due to the bird adopting a very compact posture, more like a Black-crowned Night Heron.
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Here in the final shot of this digiscoped photo sequence, the Green Heron is in mid-step. Its crest is also raised which it seemed to do from time to time. Presumably this is in response to some sense of alarm, although it was never clear to us what might be alarming the bird -- whether ourselves or something else. In fact, the heron seemed quite unflappable. In my past experience with Green Herons, at the first sign of something they don't like, they fly away. This bird seemed unfazed by human watchers, occasional intrusions of water fowl, and harassment by other birds including magpies and woodpeckers that didn't appreciate its presence. The only time was saw it startled into flight was when a Bald Eagle flew overhead, which incidentally also sent many other birds into the air.
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Here, the Green Heron has flown up into a dead tree above the river inlet spot shown in the previous series of photos. It is now on the west side of the path. A Bald Eagle had flown down the river, spooking a lot of birds up into the air. Whether the heron was flushed by the eagle or just decided it was a good time to do some morning preening, I don't know. As with the previous series, this sequence of four shots was taken with my main digiscoping setup.
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Here we can see some nice plumage detail as the Green Heron has fluffed up a bit. With this shot, I cranked the aperture all the way down (maximum f number). The heron is a somewhat large bird and I wasn't far off from it -- the photos in this series are only slightly cropped. My theory was that I wanted to make sure that whatever depth of field the scope would deliver, the camera would capture it regardless of the focal point. With a wider aperture I would get more light (and thus a faster shutter speed), but the camera might record a shallower depth of field and leave some parts of the bird out of focus depending on where the autofocus locked on. The trade-off I made in this instance was okay because the light was good and the resulting shutter speed of around 1/90 is not bad. With the bird so large and close, using spot metering for this shot was a fast and easy way to make sure the exposure would come out nicely despite shooting against the backdrop of a light, empty sky. If the bird was farther away it would be necessary to use positive exposure compensation (perhaps +2/3 EV) to prevent the camera from exposing for the sky, thus under-exposing the bird.
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Here, the Green Heron is shown preening.
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More preening, this time showing some more feather details.
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Since the Green Heron showed no signs of going anywhere soon, I moved along the path to get a different angle. The bird continued to preen while I relocated, and locked back in on it. I was in some degree of tree cover which may have helped reduce any disturbance from my move. This sequence of five shots also was taken with my main digiscoping setup. Photographing through tree limbs with a digiscoping rig may not be as challenging as it may seem, since the field of view through the scope is pretty narrow.
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Done preening for the moment, the Green Heron fluffs up a bit and checks me out to make sure I'm still harmless. We get some nice wing feather detail here.
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Here we can see even more wing detail.
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Now it is time for a stretch. I was barely able to fit the whole bird in the frame.
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Whew! All that personal grooming really takes it out of a bird. Time for a quick nap?
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Well, as it happened, the Green Heron decided not to opt for a nap. After all, there were tasty fish to be had down there in the inlet, might as well go get them. Here, the heron is peering intently into the water, ready to strike if something swims by. This sequence of three shots also was taken with my main digiscoping setup.
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This is one of my favorite shots of this series. The Green Heron just finished gulping a small fish, and is "licking its lips."
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Now it is decision time, whether to go downstream or upstream.
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