Thursday, February 25, 2010

Big birds of Viera's man-made wetlands

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In the past several weeks, while running errands, I've stopped by Viera's Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands a few times on a whim. It's conveniently located near many of the stores in Viera that I frequent, so taking a slight detour through the wetlands to see what's flying around on a particular day is not much to ask. After all, I always have my camera with me, and one never knows what critter will make itself visible, even during the briefest of visits to such a wildlife refuge. On one of those days, a sandhill crane landed on the bumpy dirt road in front of me.

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The crane made its way to the edge of the water, where it browsed for food.

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Another common, large bird at the wetlands is the great blue heron. This one was having an Alfalfa-style hair day.

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This heron was stalking fish when I visited late in the afternoon, during the golden hour.

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I thought the heron had spotted a particularly large fish. Or, at least, something moved it to fly a short distance, feet skimming on the water's surface, then plop back down into the swampy grass. It caught no fish, though. I guess it was just skittish behavior on account of the photographer pointing a large camera lens in its general direction.

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