The first chick from the new Little Blue Heron nest has been growing quickly. Say hello to Moe; named as the first of an anticipated 3 chicks, the others are destined to be Larry and Curley. He is only a couple of days old in these photos.
I was out of town for a while and feared missing the arrival of Larry and Curley. Alas, as of July 17, the eggs are grubbier but still unhatched. It looks like they are no longer viable, and Larry and Curley will just be shells of themselves.
Moe has become quite large, and any chicks now born with that kind of size disadvantage would not survive for long. As of July 21, you can see Moe giving the "side-eye" to the eggs, wondering when he might have some siblings to bully.
And at this point, Moe is approximately 3 weeks old. One egg seems to be cracked at the bottom and Mom is rarely there, so it seems she has given up as well and is concentrating on feeding Moe. Moe is a week or more away from first flight, but he is venturing from the nest by climbing higher in his tree and returning.
Our young Tri-Color Heron friends (Mohawk Boy and Einstein), have mainly been off on their own. But I saw the two of them together for the first time in a while on my first morning back in town.
It's become quite difficult to tell them apart now. I thought these were the only Tri-Colors nesting around here, but recently spied an adult landing on the other side of Moe's tree and some resultant scuffling around. So, with clues for another nest, I started looking more closely. There are another 2 chicks/nestlings in a nest deep within that tree. I have only been able to photograph one so far.
They are not very visible, as you can see. The sibling is to the right in the frame, but only a small portion of the back is visible here. These two have been dubbed Homer and Josephine, shortened to simply "HoJo" when only one can be seen (which is currently most of the time). However, this morning, HoJo took a first flight - a short hop to 2 trees and back to the home tree before once again disappearing into the depths of the tree.
The now-juvenile Little Blue Herons from before (from the vintage of Huey, Dewey and Louie) are now making themselves at home most anywhere. Some still have the Boris Johnson hairstyle, but they will stay white for approximately a year before they begin to slowly turn to blue and sport a "piebald" appearance for a while during the transition.
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