- a new visitor

I guess I need to start by saying Happy New Year.  It amazes it me that it is now 2010; seems like we just passed the big 2000.

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple photos I just took.  It is a beautifully clear morning with no wind and a brisk temp of 15 degrees.  I happened to look out of our back window toward our creeks and saw a Great Blue Heron sitting adjacent to (what we call) Phillips Creek.  The photos are not the best, but hopefully you get a good idea of what this magnificent bird looks like.  We have seen them flying low along the water of the larger creek that acts as one of our property boundaries, but this is the first time we have seen one "on" our property.  The first 3 pictures are from about 10 minutes ago, the bottom one is a stock photo in case you don’t know what they look like up close.

Great Blue Heron: The largest North American Heron, with a head-to-tail length of 36-55 in, a wingspan of 66-79 in, and a weight of 4.4-8 lbs, it is blue-gray overall, with black flight feathers, red-brown thighs, and a paired red-brown and black stripe up the flanks; the neck is rusty-gray, with black and white streaking down the front; the head is paler, with a nearly white face, and a pair of black plumes running from just above the eye to the back of the head. The feathers on the lower neck are long and plume-like; it also has plumes on the lower back at the start of the breeding season. The bill is dull yellowish, becoming orange briefly at the start of the breeding season, and the lower legs gray, also becoming orangey at the start of the breeding season. Immature birds are duller in color, with a dull blackish-gray crown, and the flank pattern only weakly defined; they have no plumes, and the bill is dull gray-yellow. (from Wikipedia)