Tag: bird

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.