Flighty Birds!!

The Little Blue Herons have really taken to the sky since the last post! Often in the morning, an adult (blue) will take a bunch of the fledglings for a flight around the lake. This morning they also ventured out into the bayou before returning. A few, who presumably have less confidence than the others, will peel off and end their outing early. Most are no longer sleeping in their nests, which are getting a little worse for the wear. They re-distribute themselves around and within the trees. Consequently, I haven't see our named trio of Huey, Dewey and Louie together for several days.

Although their heads are still a little fuzzy, it's clear that they're maturing. But not so much that they still don't want meal hand-outs from the parents!

Sadly, so far it's proven nearly impossible to capture images of these flights in progress. They start and end very quickly, and not on any sort of schedule.

The Great Blue Heron has also now taken to the air! After calling him a "sad case" last time, I've seen him and mom take off and fly around now as well. This chick is nearly fully grown, and becoming much more difficult to distinguish from the adults. I did see one of the first flight attempts, where he glided down to the pond's edge and hung out for a while. Then, while trying to fly back up the nest, he crashed about halfway up the tree. Amazingly, he then climbed the whole way back up to the nest.

Above is the chick exploring the small pond next to the nesting tree, and this next shot is Mom sunbathing (and cooling down in the heat) while waiting for the chick's return.

On Memorial Day, an amazing experience was seeing the entire family of 3 out on a flight around the lake and a rest stop down at the far end.

The Anhingas are also growing up fast, but I've rarely seen them leaving the trees. Their positions have been pretty much fixed for the last several weeks.

But, the cycle continues........ there are now a couple new nests of very young chicks, both for the Anhingas (new eggs as well) and the Little Blue Herons.

A new discovery of 2 Tri-Colored Heron chicks was made a few days ago. They are now large enough to be venturing away from the nest (not flying yet). Until this happened, the nest was too deep in the foliage to even be seen. Here is one of the 2 chicks. I hope to catch them both together very soon!