fog and a night heron

Fog covered the landscape this morning suggesting that mid-May warm-up time was indeed approaching (spring fogs materialize when the air temperature is notably warmer than the water temperature). In the extended early-morning light, there was a lot of bird singing and this morning's recital roster included a rather tentative Brown Thrasher (in what might have been his first outing of the season), Eastern Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, American Goldfinch, White-breasted Nuthatch, House and Carolina Wren and, of course, the redoubtable Pine Warbler. There was a rather rhythmic song or call that I could not identify or track down plus all the other regulars.

Someone stole the molded plastic chair that I put by the pond and it turned up in a open wooded glade back of the marsh where the local kids like to hang out. I hauled it back out to the pond edge and, with the fog replaced by blue sky, I settled in for a bit of bird sit. I didn't have long to wait. Almost immediately a Yellow-crowned Night Heron popped up in a bit of marsh just over the far side of the pond and I was able to watch his incredibly slow movements as he inched forward and then lowered his long neck, one millimeter at a time. Then suddenly he lunged down into the grass. Nothing. Repeat performance. Caught something. Another repeat. This time a good-sized crab, big enough to require a bit of crunch and scrunch to get it down. The crustacean made a substantial bulge in his gullet and it took a gulp and a shake to get it down. This bird or its lookalike cousin has been a regular spring visitor in recent years and there is, I suspect, a nest somewhere in the vicinity (this species, like the Green Heron but unlike the other herons and egrets, tends to nest in solitary pairs). Judging by the habitat, the crabs would have been Fiddlers rather than Blue Crabs.

More early spring flowers. The few bushes of Shadbush that surviving the hurricane are blooming. Also wild strawberry and a violet. The ol' Apple Tree is in full flower at the moment having turned from dotted pink to almost pure white. An early spring butterfly came fluttering by but it would not pose; it was very dark above with yellow or yellow/orange bands. It was too small to be a Mourning Cloak and I don't think it was a Red Admiral; frankly it didn't look at all familiar.

Eric Salzman