#383: Western Reef Heron
Thursday, July 12th, 2007As usual, I woke up about 5:00 A.M. on Monday morning. I debated heading out to Drier-Offerman/Calvert Vaux Park to see if the previous day’s Western Reef-Heron had returned. It had not been relocated on Sunday by anyone besides the original observer (though he had posted good photos so there was no doubt what it was) and I needed to go to work, so I hemmed and hawed about whether to make the trip. I thought maybe I’d try after work, though the tides would be wrong.
Then shortly after 7:00, news went out over the local rare-bird alert that Doug Gochfeld had seen the Western Reef Heron fly in about 6:50 and it was now being well seen by multiple observers. That was too much to take, so I threw my binoculars and camera into my backpack and called a cab.
The cab dropped me off at the Eastern entrance to the park about 7:45. I hopped over the concrete barrier and walked very briskly down to the inlet. (Fortunately I know this spot well.) I scrambled down the hill to the water through a lot of very tall mugwort, thoroughly staining my beige pants. (I knew I should have worn the black jeans today. Oh well. Dress code at work is pretty casual.)
Various herons and egrets were feeding in the inlet near the tideline eighty meters or so to the south of me, mostly Snowys. I scanned the group with my binoculars and there it was: a blue heron with a white face, black legs with yellow feet, long thin black bill, about the size of the nearby Snowy Egrets. Even from a distance it was unmistakable. (I’d researched it online the night before, and knew what to look for. Otherwise I’m not sure what I would have thought: Snowy Egret-Little Blue Heron hybrid maybe? It’s not in any of the North American field guides.)
