8.01.2005


Great Blue Heron hanging out near the boat ramp.

7 comments:

Anvilcloud said...

There are a number of GBHs around here, but they are always too near stoney banks or muddy water or too far away for decent pictures it seems.

R.Powers said...

I have never understood why people think of swamps as dismal places, they are so full of life.

Keith "Nurse Keith" Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC said...

I love our local swamp, often visited by herons and geese. Your images of your swamp are a touchstone for me.

Ontario Wanderer said...

GBH's have alway been one of my favourite birds. We lived within a mile of one of their nesting spots in Kansas. Here in Ontario, they stop and take frogs from our ponds at times but spend most of their time by the river or one of the Great Lakes.

Karen Schmautz said...

Beautiful bird.

Forgive my ignorance, but are those cypress trees growing in the water? I've recently learned about cypress knees from Florida Cracker and now I am fascinated with those trees. We don't have anything like that out in dry California.

swamp4me said...

Hick, there are actually two species of trees growing out there in the water, one is the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) and the other is the water tupelo (Nyssa aquatica). Both have swollen bases, but only the cypress has knees. The tupelo is a deciduous broadleaf tree and the cypress has needles.
We have several virgin cypress growing way back in the swamp. They're estimated to be about 1000 years old and are really large. (There is a post somewhere back in my archives that shows one of them -- seems like it was in the early spring).

Lené Gary said...

Glad to see the heron. For the past two summers, I saw many of them here in Vermont. They aren't around this year; it's odd and makes me worry a little bit.

Love the bald cypress too. Before moving up north, I lived just a couple of miles from a beautiful creek in Texas where they grew.