Neighborhood Pond in the Early Morning – Part 1
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Our days have been hot and humid recently. I started on my walk just after 6 AM when the temperature was in the low 70s and the humidity was about 90%. My destination was the storm water retention pond in our neighborhood. The moon was still visible above the trees. The day lily leaves and Virginia creeper at the base of our oak looked very lush as I picked up sticks that had fallen on the driveway. I’ve learned to cut the day lily leaves after the bloom period so that they grow back fresh and lovely in August and into the fall. That job will be done in the next few weeks.
I saw a black feather on the sidewalk along the way. Maybe from a crow?
When I got to the pond, I heard frogs and red-winged black-birds but didn’t see them immediately. I took pictures of the calm pond…the humidity clouding the air at first – the reflections on one side of the pond looking hazy. Then, a short time later, some reflected color from a different angle that darkened the vegetation to silhouettes.
I heard some splashing and then a bird larger than a red-winged blackbird flew up into a tree. My first thought was maybe a heron. I found it through the zoom on my camera. It was a Green Heron with a fish!
It started moving to swallow the fish and this sequence is from just after the bird stilled after getting the positioned and swallowing.
The green herons have so many different ‘looks’ because of the way they can move their necks. There are times they don’t look all that much like a heron.
But then they stretch out their neck. Sometimes the way they hold up the feathers on the tops of their heads, they look a little like a roadrunner!
I’ll post about everything else I saw at the pond tomorrow.
