Great Blue Heron, Reflection. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A great blue heron on the hunt in a Central Valley pond.
This photograph of a great blue heron comes from this season’s first visit to California’s Central Valley to photograph migratory and other birds. Such visits become a main part of my photography between December and March. The trigger for this early December trek to the Valley was a forecast of fog — and I love foggy days out in the Valley. (On the other hand, I sympathize with locals who get a bit tired of the tule fog when it sticks around for days or weeks.) While the bird populations weren’t exactly overwhelming on this visit — and the great light never quite arrived — it was great to be back in the field on this visit marking the start of a new season.
There is a tremendous variety of birds to photograph in this area. The large flocks of geese and cranes are an obvious attraction, but others have started to grow on me — the redwing and tricolor blackbirds, egrets, ibises, lots of LBBs (little brown birds) and these large and magnificent great blue herons. I almost always encounter them as solitary individuals — thought, oddly, it isn’t unusual to find them in the company of a solitary egret. That was the case with this one. It and its egret companion were busy hunting in the shallow waters of a pond. I stopped and remained in my vehicle to avoid scaring the birds, and eventually they moved quite close to me.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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