A couple of days ago I spotted what looked like an unusually large pigeon in the shadows across the river. Hmm... I checked with binoculars, and sure enough, it was a Green Heron. It's been seven years since I last saw one of these guys around here. Rain had recently turned the river from a bed of rocks into an actual body of water, and the heron was patiently waiting for little fishes to swim by. Click the picture above for photos from both 2015 and 2022.
I'm not sure how this species got named a "Green" Heron—its body is bluish gray and its neck anywhere from maroon to purple, but in a couple of the 2022 photos you can see just a bit of green grazing the top of its back. The color disappears when seen face-on, though.
