Tag: Ardea alba

Yesterday I had the wonderful privilege of visiting the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix with my friend melanyouth for a day of bird watching and cactus gazing and coffee drinking. It was a splendid spring day in the valley. I think she added twenty new birds to her life list. 

When we stopped to sit in the shade of a mesquite bosque we were joined by a long-legged great egret (Ardea alba). These birds aren’t as uncommon in the Sonoran Desert as you might think. I see them regularly around golf course ponds or on the sides of irrigation canals. This bird was not far from water, but he was out for a day of hunting on land. 

For about twenty minutes we watched the egret stalking the bosque underbrush. It would wave its neck sinuously, tilt its head, and crouch slowly. The incremental movements of wading birds epitomize patience. 

When we spotted a lizard in the detritus we finally realized what the bird was about. A quick thrust and he had a beakful of writhing lizard – in this case a tiger whiptail (Cnemidophorus tigris). There were a few moments of struggle, a few snaps of the beak to re-position the lizard head-first, a quick gulp, and gone. Then the bird started hunting for more. 

Tennyson reminds us that nature is red in tooth and claw. Yesterday we also watched a small mother groundsquirrel chase away a much larger roadrunner, protecting her brood from a predator on the prowl for a baby groundsquirrel meal, so at least the top bird doesn’t always get its way.  

A bit grisly, perhaps, but you can click any photo in the set for enlarged views. 

Yesterday I had the wonderful privilege of visiting the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix with my friend melanyouth for a day of bird watching and cactus gazing and coffee drinking. It was a splendid spring day in the valley. I think she added twenty new birds to her life list. 

When we stopped to sit in the shade of a mesquite bosque we were joined by a long-legged great egret (Ardea alba). These birds aren’t as uncommon in the Sonoran Desert as you might think. I see them regularly around golf course ponds or on the sides of irrigation canals. This bird was not far from water, but he was out for a day of hunting on land. 

For about twenty minutes we watched the egret stalking the bosque underbrush. It would wave its neck sinuously, tilt its head, and crouch slowly. The incremental movements of wading birds epitomize patience. 

When we spotted a lizard in the detritus we finally realized what the bird was about. A quick thrust and he had a beakful of writhing lizard – in this case a tiger whiptail (Cnemidophorus tigris). There were a few moments of struggle, a few snaps of the beak to re-position the lizard head-first, a quick gulp, and gone. Then the bird started hunting for more. 

Tennyson reminds us that nature is red in tooth and claw. Yesterday we also watched a small mother groundsquirrel chase away a much larger roadrunner, protecting her brood from a predator on the prowl for a baby groundsquirrel meal, so at least the top bird doesn’t always get its way.  

A bit grisly, perhaps, but you can click any photo in the set for enlarged views. 

The egret rookery in the Campostella Heights neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia is not in trees on a quiet tidal inlet, but in a few loblolly pines on a major roadway, adjacent to homes, a school, a church. There is a even a McDonald’s restaurant nearby, at the crossroads shown in the bottom photo, just a few hundred feet from the rookery. The colony is only a few miles from the high-rise banks and businesses and hotels of downtown Norfolk. There is ample riparian and marshy habitat on the nearby Steamboat Creek, but to me the perplexing mystery of this egret colony is its choice of this unconventional location.  

The egret rookery in the Campostella Heights neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia is not in trees on a quiet tidal inlet, but in a few loblolly pines on a major roadway, adjacent to homes, a school, a church. There is a even a McDonald’s restaurant nearby, at the crossroads shown in the bottom photo, just a few hundred feet from the rookery. The colony is only a few miles from the high-rise banks and businesses and hotels of downtown Norfolk. There is ample riparian and marshy habitat on the nearby Steamboat Creek, but to me the perplexing mystery of this egret colony is its choice of this unconventional location.  

Egret Series No. 7.

Great egret (Ardea alba), in Norfolk, Virginia.

Please click photo for enlarged view. 

I will be relocating soon to Arizona, where great egrets are migratory transients. I am excited in anticipation of my new environment, but I think I will be missing these majestic birds all too soon.

Egret Series No. 7.

Great egret (Ardea alba), in Norfolk, Virginia.

Please click photo for enlarged view. 

I will be relocating soon to Arizona, where great egrets are migratory transients. I am excited in anticipation of my new environment, but I think I will be missing these majestic birds all too soon.