Tagged With: Butorides virescens

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

As mentioned in my previous post, we saw three types of heron on our walk on the C&O Canal. We were along the turning basin just northwest of the Seneca Creek aqueduct. We saw both immature and adult black-crowned night herons (Nycticorax nycticorax), at least two great blue herons (Ardea herodias), and at least two green herons (Butorides virescens), including this one. This is the first time we’ve seen green herons here, so that was quite exciting and I was particularly glad to have my new telephoto. As you can imagine, I’m going to be enjoying this on bird hikes, although it really is quite heavy. I’m also not sure I’m going to be able to get anything worthwhile with it of birds actually flying. It’s simply too much lens for that, at least until I’ve had a lot of practice.

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Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

Green Heron (<em>Butorides virescens</em>)

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

We went to the C&O Canal today, walking upstream from Riley’s Lock and the Seneca Creek Aqueduct. Past the far end of the turning basin we saw a family of wood ducks (Aix sponsa) but none of the males were in their fancy, breeding plumage. They are still pretty ducks and since we usually only see mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), we enjoyed watching them paddle around in the duck weed. We also saw a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) and I got quite a few nice photos of that.

On the way back, I saw something that didn’t register immediately but I stopped and backed up to take a better look. It was this green heron (Butorides virescens) on its nest in a willow hanging out over the water of the turning basin. I was able to get a pretty good show, in spite of the branches of the tree.

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Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

After our walk in the Green Swamp we drove to the Twin Ponds overlook. We affectionately call it Alligator Pond because that’s what we generally go to see. The boardwalk style viewing platform is officially call the Carl Bazemore Bird Walk. There are also birds there, and today we saw this green heron (Butorides virescens) in the shallows. In years past the view has been obscured by rank growth between the viewing platform and the pond. Sometime since last year that has been cut down, making the viewing considerably better. We did see an alligator there today, but I think my best photo from the visit was this one of the heron.

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