One of the nice items about late summer into early fall is that birds often set up in favorite spots for foraging / hunting / fishing. This gives a person / birder the opportunity to learn the habits of specific birds, and in my case a unique Great Blue Heron. I knew that the individual bird featured in this blog post likes to fish and hunt next to some specific lily pads. The heron’s legs resemble the pad’s stems, which allows the bird to blend in with its environment (under water) and capture food that swims out from under the lily pads.

I hope you enjoy this sequence of images. I took the photographs a few days ago, but the planning took place over 10 days prior as I learned about the bird through repeated visits. I definitely wanted to capture strikes, and the frog was a bit of luck! Notice on the minnow strike sequence how much krud the bird also “catches” for a small morsel. The heron then needs to “get rid of” all the weeds and mucks. Finally, when photographing birds with light to white colored plumage, and lots of water think reflective light. Thus, I always under expose my photographs in this kind of situation.

The Frog Strike

Random Strikes

The Minnow Strike

The Finale! (environment images)

The past few mornings have seen me birding Duluth’s Forest Hill Cemetery. From now till the end of Fall Migration the results can be fantastic, and the permanent residents don’t tend to mind. If your local cemetery has a pond, focus upon the water. Forest Hill has two ponds and the birds know it is a time of plenty in terms of food. Better yet, due to some live humans who frequent Forest Hill, the birds are somewhat accepting of your birding presence. (learn more about Forest Hill and obtain the GPS coordinates via my My Minnesota Birding Locations web page)

I’ll lead off with a Great Blue Heron. This bird has been hanging out at the cemetery for almost one week. Make certain you watch “The Strike Video”. I have slowed down this action by a factor of two. The video also shows you the strike at normal speed. (video link for email subscribers)

Reflective Mornings … Great Blue and Green Herons

And perhaps my biggest treat … a pair of Belted Kingfishers are busy fishing all the time and somewhat permissive of my getting closer. Their young will fledge soon. One fact about Belted Kingfishers which is unusual for bird species … the female is the more brightly colored sex. As female birds tend to do most of the incubation of eggs, their colors are normally more drab to help camouflage their presence.

Over the past two weeks I have been privileged to watch a Red-Headed Woodpecker family. I owe a HUGE thanks to my birding friend who showed me the nest hole location. Red-Headed Woodpeckers are extremely rare in northeastern Minnesota and I promised I would not blog about these birds till the young had fledged and flown, which they have now in fact done. It was a treat to watch the family grow up! On many occasions I have noted how much I love to bird Forest Hill Cemetery, which is where these beautiful birds called home.

Red-Bellied Woodpeckers

Feeding the young. Tombstones are great ambush locations for bugs!

Showing the Juveniles how and where to eat!

And two videos (links for email subscribers: video 1 | video 2)