bird

Juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron /  by Todd Henson

A juvenile yellow-crowned night heron

Some species of heron seem very common in the greater DC area, such as great blue and green herons. But night-herons rank among the species I rarely see. They tend to be a bit more secretive, perhaps more often out hunting at dusk and night, though as these photos show, they can also be seen by day.

Juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-heron

What we have here is a juvenile yellow-crowned night-heron. There are two species of night-heron in the area, black-browned and yellow-crowned, and if these were adults you’d more easily see why each is named as they are, though the yellow crown on an adult may be difficult to see. Adults are very distinctive and easy to identify. But the juveniles can look very similar. This one is more grey and has various markings on the feathers that help identify it as yellow-crowned.

In late July of 2008 we found several of these juvenile yellow-crowned night-herons walking the pathways around the pools at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, in Washington DC, where they grow lotus and water lilies and where large crowds gather to see the blooms each summer. Night-herons may be more secretive, in general, but given these were juveniles and that they seem to have hatched in an area where many people gather, they were very bold and unafraid, seemingly ignoring the people and focusing on the water and any prey they could find.

Juvenile yellow-crowned night heron moving towards the water

Technical Note

A quick technical note to admit to my mistakes and to demonstrate that even when we make mistakes it’s often possible to salvage something of value from them (beyond the obvious learning opportunity). On a previous photo session I’d been photographing in a very dark area and had my camera’s ISO set very high (1000 was high at the time). I’d forgotten to set it back to normal when finished, and I’d forgotten to double check my settings before setting out this morning. So for much of the morning I kept wondering why I was able to achieve such high shutter speeds (1/8000 second). Well, it’s because my ISO was set way too high for a bright sunny day.

Lessons Learned

So, what lessons did I learn from this experience and from the mistakes I made?

  • Reset my camera settings to my typical values after each photo session. That way I have a known place to start from next time I pick up the camera.

  • Always double check my settings before my next photo session, just in case I’ve forgotten to reset them. This is when I can also change the settings to suit whatever environment I’m going into if I know to expect a certain level of light.

  • If something seems off in the field, such as unusually high shutter speeds, then stop and double check all my settings. I could have found my error and corrected it much sooner.

  • It’s often possible to salvage worthwhile material even after making what seems a stupid mistake. Granted, these photos will never be as technically good as they could have been. I have lost some data to noise. But thankfully it was a bright sunny day with few dark areas so the noise was surprisingly minimal and I was able to pass the photos through Lightroom’s noise reduction process to lessen the digital noise introduced by the high ISO. The photos work perfectly well for a blog post showing off a species.

Portrait view of a juvenile yellow-crowned night heron

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Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk Cooling Off /  by Todd Henson

A juvenile red-tailed hawk cooling down in a puddle of water

Back on April 16 of 2017 while hiking the trails of Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge I was waved over by another photographer. He had found a juvenile red-tailed hawk that had landed in a puddle of water in the brush not far from the trail. Being in the brush it was a bit obscured so the photos may not graduate into the artistic realm, but they do provide some good views of this beautiful young hawk.

When the hawk stood tall it showed off its white chest feathers

A profile view of the juvenile red-tailed hawk

It's interesting the flexibility hawks have to twist their head and look straight up

Being a juvenile its tail feathers haven’t yet developed that striking rufous coloration the species is known for, though you can see hints of the color. This hawk was a very light colored one as you can see when it faces its chest towards the camera and in the one flight photo I captured (though the bird was blurry in the photo).

Every so often the juvenile red-tailed hawk would look straight at the camera.

Zooming and cropping in shows details of the hawk's head and shoulders

I spent about 40 minutes photographing this young hawk, going a bit overboard by capturing 250 images, many almost the same. When I first arrived it was standing in the puddle where it spent most of that time. It appeared to be cooling off. At one point it lowered itself and ruffled its feathers just as ducks do from time to time. It walked out of the puddle for a short bit before going back into it. Only about 37 minutes later did it take flight into some nearly branches before a few minutes later taking off for some other location.

The juvenile hawk had just lowered itself into the water and ruffled its wings, splashing the water all over itself

See how the young hawk blends into the brush?

Eventually the young hawk flew into a branch partially obscured by the brush

I love spending this much time with a single animal that isn’t at all concerned by my presence. I stayed put on the trail. It stayed put in the puddle just off the trail. And even though I did create too many images, it enabled me to get various views of the hawk and to share some of those with you. I hope you enjoy looking through these photos of a beautiful young red-tailed hawk.

When the young hawk bends over we can begin to see the early signs of the rufous coloration in its tail feathers

One final view of the perched juvenile red-tailed hawk before it flies away

Though the hawk is blurry, this photo does a decent job of showing the light coloration on the underside of the juvenile red-tailed hawk's wings

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Hooded Merganser Competition for a Nest Box /  by Todd Henson

An early spring female hooded merganser swimming in the wetlands

Perhaps competition is a strong word. Perhaps there were simply two candidates inspecting the property before they decided whether to move in. What am I talking about? During a visit to a wetlands park we happened to see two female hooded mergansers around the same nest box in early spring.

Arriving at the nest box

The female hooded merganser perched on the nest box

Early on one of the mergansers flew up and perched atop the box, perhaps thinking to stake her claim. But then the second merganser flew over and was bold enough to stick her head into the opening to inspect the nesting area before flying off again.

A second female hooded merganser flies up to the nest box while the other is perched on top

The second merganser peeked into the nest box while the other watched from above

Later, the original merganser sat down atop the box and just rested for a while. It seemed she might be staking her claim, but eventually she also flew off.

The original female hooded merganser rests atop the nest box.

Finally the original female hooded merganser left the nest box and flew away.

In the end I’ve no clue which of two, if either, will build a nest inside the box. But it would be nice to return to check on any progress.

In a previous year we happened to be there at the time the hooded merganser chicks fledged from the nest. That was a fun sight.

And on another day I was fortunate to watch the slightly older hooded merganser chicks out with their mother.

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