Learning to Fly- Great Blue Heron Chicks & Neighbors

 

C’mon, let’s fly!!

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Being an observer of Florida’s avian nesting season is nothing short of privilege! The often rambunctious process of raising, especially feeding, chicks seems a distillation of the general cycle of life which happens in just a couple of months from egg to fledgling. This post centers around a pair of siblings nearly ready to go off on their own, their nest and neighborhood. You can see bits of fish matter on their bills which tells me that they are still being fed in the nest as you know adult fishermen herons catch and swallow their fish whole.

One of my favourite aspects of watching the young of this majestic species is the development of the young wings from skeletal appendages with sheath covered pin feathers to the fully feathered strong graceful wings of the adult. Here there is quite a bit of practicing going on learning to fly and gaining lift off the nesting platform. Because I’d still call them teenagers, they seem more inquisitive than definite, still attached to the nest. Not for long though. Click PINFEATHERS for a view of developing wings with pin feathers from a previous post.

This series shows the sibling pair of Great blue herons but also some wider angle shots of the neighborhood. Mostly featuring wood storks but you can also see anhinga chicks and adults, a cattle egret, and a cormorant in the tree too. A nesting colony is by no means exclusive to one species although there seems to be a phased aspect to it as they do not all mate and lay eggs at exactly the same time though there is overlap with the young of different species in neighboring nests. I find the Great blue herons nest a bit earlier than the white egrets or tricolor herons for example.

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Judy

~ by Judy on February 27, 2020.