BirdBlog -- 12 April 2020

Great Blue Herons Mating

12 April 2020

There's a wildlife sanctuary run by Mass Audubon in Richmond, Massachusetts. I don't know how big the entire property is; what's available is a small pull-off from the road from which one can observe a beaver pond with more than twenty nests for great blue herons. I went there this morning, and although the light wasn't great for seeing or photography—the nests are well to the east of the road, so they were backlit—there were a number of birds visible. I wasn't certain what I was seeing at one point, when one of two birds in one nest started flapping its wings, but I figured I'd photograph it—display behavior, I guessed. Well, yes, it was mating related…