Various birds

15 Responses to Various birds

1. Blair says:

   March 25, 2014 at 9:58 pm

   The first ones look like cormorants to me…the latter is definitely a heron.
2. shotgunner says:

   March 25, 2014 at 10:24 pm

   Cormorant is correct. Which species requires time. Perhaps tomorrow.

   Great blue heron seems correct.

   Gimme a snake lizard turtle or frog I’m all over it!
3. MaryAnne says:

   March 25, 2014 at 10:30 pm

   Double crested Cormorant? The feathers have the right markings, if I’m remembering right.
4. Robert Evans says:

   March 25, 2014 at 10:56 pm

   Bird in the second photo is indeed a Great Blue Heron. Birds in the first photo do indeed look like cormorants. Are you near a coastline?
   • Y. says:

     March 26, 2014 at 1:22 pm

     Birds migrate..

     Giant flocks of cormorants have been known to do completely remove fish from parts of rivers a thousand klicks inland..
5. Swampfox says:

   March 26, 2014 at 3:39 am

   Cormorants , also known, here in the glades, as a snake bird. This is because the swim with their body submerged with the head and neck extended , looking like a snake with its head stuck-up.
   • Terry says:

     March 26, 2014 at 3:05 pm

     Swampfox, you are thinking of the Anhinga, different from a Cormorant. And those aren’t anhingas in the picture.
     • Swampfox says:

       March 28, 2014 at 6:34 am

       Terry,
       Your right, an old man’s memory and eyesight. thanks for the correct
6. mikee says:

   March 26, 2014 at 11:56 am

   Great Blue Herons, like the one in your second picture, winter on the beaches of South Texas, and even inland to my home near Austin, Texas.

   I lived in central NC for 18 years and saw one of these majestic creatures exactly once in all that time.

   Here, I see one or two in our suburban neighborhood’s retention pond almost daily all winter long, along with green herons, egrets, many duck and geese species, kingfishers and the occasional road runner hopping over backyard fences.

   Urban wildlife is one thing, but suburban wildlife is quite another.
7. Sven in Colorado says:

   March 26, 2014 at 6:47 pm

   Cormorants, yes for certain. They migrate inland. We see flocks of them in the summer, fishing in the flooded gravel pits along the major feeders streams in the South Platte River Basin. I read somewhere that S.E. Asian fishermen tame them; put a ring around their necks to keep them from swallowing the fish and send them hunting in packs….removing the rings and allowing them to feed after their quota is caught.
8. Terry says:

   March 27, 2014 at 10:57 am

   First photo – cormorants, also known as “water turkeys” down here in Southeast Texas. The Great Blue Heron in the second photo is also a common species down here in the Coastal Plains, too.
   • Weer'd Beard says:

     March 30, 2014 at 7:11 pm

     Heh, learn something new. Interestingly enough in Maine people call Cormorants “Shit-Pokes” and “Shags”, no idea why.

     I kinda like “Water Turkey”, that’s funny!
9. Rick T says:

   March 27, 2014 at 4:16 pm

   Looks like a Double-crested Cormorant, the skin colors around the beak and the habitat are both good fits.
10. Fred Simons says:

    March 27, 2014 at 9:40 pm

    The first birds are double-crested cormorants, Phalacrocorax auritus. Quite common, not only on the coasts but all across the country on lakes and rivers. The second picture is a great blue heron.
11. Charles Adams says:

    April 2, 2014 at 4:01 am

    I believe Rick T has it correct – those appear to be Double-creasted Comorants.

    Mike E, I’ve lived in NC, all over the state and have seen Great Blue Heron’s al over the place – here in Nc they tend to be REAL skittish – almost unapproachable. However, when I lived in Florida, they were almost a pest, almost as bad as pelican’s begging fish.

    And finally, a bit of esoterica for Wee’rd Beard – in the old Southern terminology, a small greenish Heron who lives amoung the weeds, appropriatley called the Green Heron, is often called the “shite-poke” or shite=shit and poke=bag, which comes from the practice that when disturbed in the brush on a waterbody by a would-be predator, the bird evaucates is bowels, “dropping a load” on the persurer or providing a noxious decoy.

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