A Trio of Herons

Top Photo: A trio of great blue herons in loblolly pine tree at the edge of the wetlands. Three great blue herons were present in our little wetlands this dark and damp morning (3.8.24). As I walked down the boardwalk leading to Explore the Wild and into the wetlands, all three birds rose out of the water on the east side of the pond. The large prehistoric looking birds flew circles around the wetlands for several minutes, as if to gainRead more

Hooded Merganser Follow-up

  Last week I posted about our visiting hooded mergansers and their pair bond displays out on the Wetlands. There’s another dance, or display, which I also sometimes see here at the Museum. It involves the male swimming zig-zag circles around the female with quick turns to the left, to the right, and back again. The display also includes frequent side to side head shakes, and what I can best describe as nervous twitching, stretching, preening, and other distraction-type behaviors.Read more

Red tails, Red breasts, and a Nervous NOMO

As a follow-up to the Spring? posting of February 25th regarding the questions on the Red-tailed Hawks: A few hours after posting the above, I was out in Catch the Wind and observed a pair of Red-tailed Hawks performing their aerial courtship flight. I didn’t get the whole sequence of events on film (digital), and the birds were way up there requiring a bit of enlargement, but hopefully you’ll get the gist of what the birds are doing. The nextRead more

At Home in the Wetlands

Two bird species that have become regular fixtures in the Wetlands, at least during the winter, are Red-shouldered Hawk and Hooded Merganser. Both species can be seen daily, or nearly so, depending on the weather conditions. The Red-shouldered Hawk is present year-round and is the most common hawk species seen at the Museum, often hunting from a perch somewhere in the Wetlands or up in the swamp between Catch the Wind and Explore the Wild on the back side ofRead more