herons and a baby titmouse

Another gloomy, drippy morning only gradually giving way to hazy sunshine. No less than three Green Herons turned up flying together, almost in formation, back into the woods. A little later, one Green Heron came back out of the woods and landed in the marsh. Still later, one of these birds took up the 'on guard' position on the dead cedar on the far bank of the pond and proceeded to give a call that was half way between the soft gulping of the herons in the trees and the classic loud and sharp KEEE-yow that one associates with these birds. What's going on here? A menage a trois? A heron bachelor's club? Competition (two males vying for the attentions of one female)? Polygamy or polygeny? It would help if I could figure out a way to tell the males from the females.

The tide was high and the only bird in the pond was a diving, fishing Double-crested Cormorant. These birds are quite wary and this one took off as soon as he surfaced and spotted me. He spattered the whole length of the pond and finally got airborne just at the mouth of the pond. Later on, at low tide, a Black-crowned Night Heron came to visit.

Northern Flickers feed on the ground at the edge of the marsh under the Marsh Elder (Ivo) and Groundsel (Baccharis). I flush one up on almost every morning walk and, curiously, every one that I get a good look at seems to be a female (i.e. without the black moustache). The calling birds that I hear are presumably the males.

Yesterday's cute-as-a-button baby Tufted Titmouse -- fully tufted, definitely (pe)tit and hardly bigger than a mouse -- was perched on a limb some distance from the split-tree nest site. Since he didn't get there on foot, he/she/it has definitely graduated to fledgling status.

Eric Salzman