July 3rd found me back at the duck pond, again looking for herons. And for the third day in a row, there was one, although this one was downstream from the pond itself. And, also for the third day in a row, it was a different kind of heron, a great blue heron.

Even though this bird is much larger than the others, it is also much harder to get close to it. The picture at left does a reasonable job of portraying how far away I was. This picture was taken from the paved path/bridge that separates the duck pond from the larger pond that extends to bridge/weir at Wicapecko Road. At right of the picture and closer to me are some of the ducks that are always in plentiful attendance.

Thanks to the zoom of my camera, the picture at right gives you a closer look.

By walking out on to the spit of land near the bridge that is normally occupied by the ducks when they're not swimming in the water, I was able to get closer still.

I suspect that the changed angle of its neck and head is a sign that the bird had become aware of my presence. But it didn't seem too worried because I was still a good 25 yards away and there was a lot of water between us.

One thing I've noticed about larger birds is that they don't do much unless something happens to alarm them. But the last thing I want to do is get pictures by alarming the birds. However, our peaceful pond was suddenly visited by half a dozen very noisy crows. Cawing at each other, they passed directly over the heron as they made their way from the trees on one side of the pond to the other side. This got the heron's attention, and it turned its back to the noise.

And there it stood, unmoved and unmoving.

So, I decided to try to get closer to the bird to take a better picture. I have only recently discovered the footpath that runs along the south side of the pond (to Foodtown). With the sun shining from the southwest, this promised better lighting than the path on the north, so I made my way along the path. At one point, there's a loop path that goes closer to the pond and I took that. Indeed, I had a much better look at the bird, but there were tree branches obscuring my view. I made my way east until I reached a gap where the bird was clearly visible.

Unfortunately, the bird was looking straight at said gap, saw me immediately and took off in alarm without my being quick enough to get a picture. It flew to a tree on the north side of the pond.

I made my way over there in the hope of getting a picture of it up in the tree, but no such luck. It again flew off in alarm the moment I got close.

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On July 5th, I made a return visit and was rewarded with more pictures of this bird. Although whether it's exactly the same individual, I'm not so sure.

This time, when I first arrived, there was no sign of any heron. There were lots of ducks and a V of Canada geese was swimming lazily on the pond. I took up residence on the spit of land (much to the quacking displeasure of the ducks, who retreated to the water).

The Canada geese, on the other hand, took one look at me and decided I was there to feed them, so they swam hungrily in my direction and joined me on the spit. They were somewhat put out that I ignored them and decided to go explore some of the local roads.

Meanwhile, I was scanning the pond and its banks for signs of a heron, any heron. After about 10 minutes, I became bored -- I was also sinking into the oozing mud and didn't want to ruin my shoes. So, I decided to try that same spot where I'd alarmed the bird a couple of days earlier. Almost immediately after I arrived there, the bird reappeared, alighting on a rock on the far bank and in my clear view. For the next three quarters of an hour, I was able to take a whole sequence of pictures. But once again, a large bird gave proof to my theory that left to their own devices, large birds aren't very active!

Aside from turning its head a couple of times (which I dutifully recorded), it stood there watching the world go by and completely ignoring my movements on the opposite bank (you can see from the changed background that the right hand shot above was taken from a different angle).

I returned to the spit of land (upsetting the ducks again), but my view was obscured by the fallen tree branch. Had I not seen the bird arrive, I might have wondered if I'd simply missed it when I was standing there earlier.

I decided to try the northern path to see if there were any chances to get closer. I took the picture at right from the bridge. If I hadn't known exactly where to look, I still might not have noticed the bird. You can tell that it was quite some distance from the bridge, probably about 40 yards.

But I had no luck at all. I couldn't see the bird from the north path and I started to wonder if it had flown off without my noticing. So, I went back to the southern side and there it was, but it had moved away from the exposed rock under the shade of a nearby bush. Again, had I not known where to look, I'd have missed it completely.

This time, I took careful note of its location relative to the landmarks I'd identified on the northern bank, and I finally able to take this picture through the flora. This time, I benefited from its lack of activity because that gave me time to manually focus the camera. But with those branches obscuring the view, it's not really a very good shot.

From this angle, though, it looks a lot more like the bird from twodays before than the other pictures I'd taken, so I'm inclined to think that it is the same bird.

I was still hoping that I'd get a shot of the bird with its wings extended as it prepared to fly away, but on this day I was not to be that lucky.

It teased me by taking some steps into the water, which I thought might be a precursor to it taking flight, but no. It walked in a small circle and returned to its hiding place.

I took one more picture by way of farewell.