Great Blue Heron Idling the Time at Everglades National Park, Florida

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I captured this image while strolling down the Anhinga Trail, in the Royal Palm area of Everglades National Park. Jan Nagalski and I were at the tail end of what for me had been a very disappointing day of birding at Everglades National Park. I have visited this place a couple of dozen times over the past two decades and I had never seen this place as devoid of bird life as this time around. Typically, during the winter, the everglades dry up and the fish concentrate at the park low points such as this one. Of course, the concentration of fish brings a concentration of hungry birds and bird viewers and photographers. This "El Niño" winter had been a wet one and so the water, fish and hungry birds were dispersed throughout most of the park. Hopefully that, and not more sinister reasons (like the python invasion), was the answer to why our disappointment.
The Great Blue Heron is a large wading bird in the heron family, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found only in the Caribbean and Florida was once treated as a separate species and known as the Great White Heron. The Great Blue Heron is replaced in the Old World by the very similar Grey Heron, which differs in being somewhat smaller, with a pale gray neck and legs, lacking the browner colors that great blue heron has there. It forms a super species with this and also with the Cocoi Heron from South America, which differs in having more extensive black on the head, and a white breast and neck. It is the largest North American heron, and, among all extant herons, it is surpassed only by the Goliath Heron and the White-Bellied Heron. It has head-to-tail length of 36 to 54 inches (91–137cm), a wingspan of 66 to 79 inches (167–201cm), a height of 45 to 54 inches (115–138cm), and a weight of 4 to 5 pounds (1.82–3.6 kg). In British Columbia, adult males averaged 5.5 pounds (2.48 kg) and adult females 4.7 pounds (2.11 kg). In Nova Scotia and New England, adult herons of both sexes averaged 5 pounds (2.23 kg), while in Oregon, both sexes averaged 4.6 pounds (2.09 kg). Thus, Great Blue Herons are roughly twice as heavy as Great Egrets, although only slightly taller than them, but they can weigh about half as much as a large Goliath Heron.
Info above was extracted from Wikipedia.

Taken in: United States / Florida / Goldcoaster Mobile Home Park (show map)

Taken on: March 12, 2024

Tags:

Great Blue Heron

Heron, Great Blue

Heron

Ardea Herodias

Ardeidae

Wading Bird

Wader

Heron Family

Anhinga Trail

Royal Palm

Everglades National Park

Everglades

National Park

Florida

Paul Fernandez « less

Sets appears in: • Birds of Florida - Herons & Egrets

Camera: Nikon D850, f/14.0, 0.004 sec (1/250) sec (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D850
Aperture:	f/14.0
Exposure Time:	0.004 sec (1/250)
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Stats: 225 views / 2 comments

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