Vacation Bird Sightings

I've always enjoyed seeing herons especially as they keep their silent sentinel along side a creek, river or pond.  This last vacation trip we saw lots of blue herons and for the first time heard their squawk as we ventured too close.  We were really startled one evening when we took an after dinner walk down to the marina which was part of the property where we stayed.  We could just make out the heron at the edge of the water in the gathering dusk but we spooked it and it let us know.

Heron along the shore of St. Lawrence River.  We took a river cruise from Clayton, NY to see the islands in the Thousand Islands.

An afternoon canoe trip on the pond at Fair Haven Beach State Park flushed a lot of herons.

These Canadian geese were pretending to be decoys.

A highlight of the Sterling Nature Center was this heron rookery.

Osprey nest on St. Lawrence.

Gannets on the St. Lawrence.  I stand corrected.  These are cormorants.  Thanks to the comment from Larry who led me to check my bird book.  We were misinformed by the tour guide on our boat trip on the St. Lawrence.

Heron food?

We saw this snake swim toward us in the marsh at the Sterling Nature Center.  Then it disappeared behind the log.  When it reappeared we couldn't figure out what we were seeing at first then realized it had a fish in its mouth (top of the photo).

Joining Wild Bird Wednesday