Arthur and I went kayaking at Gemini Springs this morning. It was probably the birdiest kayak route we’ve ever had, with herons, egrets, ibises, coots, gallinules and others lurking at every bend. We even saw several relatively scarce species: Green Heron; Limpkin; and American Bittern – three of them! Tree Swallows, Belted Kingfishers and Osprey hunted from above. In the four-mile round trip paddle I was surprised to see more Tricolored Herons (over a dozen) and Glossy Ibis (a flock of about 50) than I’ve ever seen before. Numbers of Wood Storks, White Ibis and Snowy Egret were also surprisingly high.
Despite all this abundance I think the most interesting thing I saw all morning was this Great Blue Heron, a very common bird.
It was standing up to its lower body in the water. Hmm, I never saw a GBHE hunting from this depth before. Interesting.
After a moment it was clear the bird was not hunting at all. It was bathing! What an operation! Unfortunately I am useless when it comes to taking photos from the kayak. As soon as I reach for my camera, the kayak starts spinning, or moving directly towards the creature I want to photograph. So I only managed this splash action picture before stabilizing my kayak and watching this big beauty proceed with a very active bath.
Afterwards it stepped up on some nearby reeds to complete its preening duties. I couldn’t find any information about Great Blue Heron bathing habits on BNA Online, bummer. I did find a nice photo series of a Great Blue bathing on Flickr, though. Check it out: Great Blue Heron Bathing.
