Back in June I shared a Dawn Chorus diary about an egret rookery that was getting a lot of attention in Sacramento for two reasons. One, it was smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood, not the most likely place to find a boatload of egrets and herons. And two, there was one unusual visitor to this Northern California rookery that many of us had never seen before: a Little Blue Heron.
Please join me below the little orange dangdoodle for more on the Little Blue Heron.
If you're a resident of the southeastern seaboard along the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico, the Little Blue Heron may be an ordinary bird for you. But for those of us in the rest of the country, it's an unusual sight. I'm a native Californian and have lived here all my life, and while I've traveled the U.S. pretty extensively, this was my first Little Blue Heron. Check out the range map for the species:
Clearly, seeing one out West is fairly unusual. And seeing one in a residential neighborhood in the inland west of Sacramento is downright odd. But there it was.
It's a gorgeous bird with its dark bluish-gray body with a maroon head and neck. Note its slightly down-curved bill that is bluish gray at the base and dark at the tip. During breeding, the bill base and facial skin become cobalt blue, as you can see below.
As the word spread thanks to ebird alerts from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as well as local listservs, more and more people started showing up. By the time I arrived, people with spotting scopes and cameras on tripods were locating the bird for new arrivals. Isolated here by my camera with a long lens, it probably seems like no one would need help spotting the bird, but with its wings folded and lots of shadows and other roosting birds spread across a broad range of pine and magnolia trees, it was actually hard to see.
This was pretty much a two-day event with reports of the bird's presence trailing off after that. I don't think anyone knows when it made its final departure, but I was just grateful I'd gotten to the site in time to see it. A really magnificent bird with such great coloring, it was a real treat to see it. Here are a few more shots.
So farewell to the Little Blue Heron and hello to the next bird that will capture everyone's attention, whatever it may be. What's been going on in your birding world?