This time I stood on the south levee just south of the small bridge on the side so I had a better chance of being to the west of the bird which would be the best light. Around 6:15 when we still had not seen the bird, I moved to the west side so I could have a good view of the dirt road that runs north from the bridge as one of last night's birders told me they had seen the bird on that road and flying to/from (?) the grass field east of it. I was watching intently with my very bright Zeiss binoculars about 6:30 pm when I saw the Bare-throated Tiger-Heron fly from the grass fields on the east of the road to an area with trees and tall shrubs on the west of the road. I was fortunate that there was a full moon that provided more light than other nights so I saw the bird make a sharp bank and drop down into the field giving me a view of it's quite thick and bended neck that is quite distinctive. I also saw the very buff coloration that is shown in the photos I posted below.
I walked further looking futilely into the dark fields for several minutes. Then a large heron that looked like the tiger-heron flew from from somewhere on the north to the south side of the canal and at a low level only about 50 ft in front of me. Too dark and fast for me to get any video while the earlier view was too distant. But on the very dark walk back to my car I heard a number of Common Pauraque calls and saw several of them including the one in the bottom pic with it's eye reflecting my flash. There's an awful lot that flies in the dark out there--besides the tiger-heron and pauraques, a smaller heron/egret flew close enough and at eye level that it startled me. SeEtta
0 comments:
Post a Comment