The Many Looks of the Little Green Heron ~ Caught on camera from around the Lowcountry!
I spend many hours out in the field studying bird behavior and photographing them for possible painting subjects. Some birds can be more challenging than others to photograph!
The little Green Heron is a relatively small heron, which for the most part is very skittish and likes to hide along riverbanks or in bushes or trees. It is naturally camouflaged, sporting brown and green feathers, which blend in nicely with its surroundings. It is also very quick and will take off in a flash if it detects unwanted activity in the area.
Being skittish, fast, and naturally camouflaged turns birding for Green Herons into a challenging sport.
The fact that the Green Heron is a master of many looks also makes him fun to photograph.
I ask myself, if I were to paint a Green Heron, how would I like to portray him? The Green Heron is full of personality. One could create a large body of work just painting the many looks of the Green Heron.
I have been fortunate to have had a number of opportunities to zero in on the elusive little heron. I have a wide variety of images to choose from ranging from serious stalking-like poses to almost comical or amusing poses. I thought it might be interesting to show you some of the many looks of the Green Heron from images I’ve taken over the last couple of years around the Lowcountry.
My most recent sighting was in Mount Pleasant at a pond in the community of Charleston National. I came across a rookery where Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets were nesting. While photographing them I noticed a lot of activity from a pair of Green Herons in a bushy area near the water. Turned out the pair had four juveniles they were tending to.
The juvies had what looked like hair plugs on top of their heads (down feathers), where the adult head feathers will soon fill in. They were full of themselves, sometimes gathering 3 or 4 on a branch, waiting impatiently for Mom and Dad to come back with dinner.
They let me get fairly close over time, as I returned four or five times to photograph them. It was the first time I’ve ever seen more than a pair together.
One of my favorite Green Herons was a bird I photographed in Huntington Beach State Park. It flew up onto the railing of a boardwalk over the marsh and put on quite a performance. He busted a move, he gave me his roadrunner-look with the spiked hairdo, and strutted his stuff like he was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever! He stuck his neck out when I was leaving to say goodbye. :-)
I was walking Folly Beach one morning and had my first sighting of a Green Heron at the beach. He was off in the distance perched on top of a gnarly old dead tree. He had a primo view!
One of the funniest poses I’ve ever seen a Green Heron make was right here in Carolina Park, Mount Pleasant, SC, where we live. Again, this one was stationed on a bare branch of a dead tree. His pose was cartoonish and made me laugh. :-)
The most camouflaged Green Heron I’ve seen was at the Audubon Swamp in Magnolia Gardens, Charleston, SC. Bright green duckweed was all around covering the surface of the water, fallen trees rotting in the swamp. There he was, creeping along, looking for his next meal.
One of my favorite birding locations is the Pitt Street Bridge, in Mount Pleasant, SC, because of the wide variety of birds that you can see on any given day. I like this shot of my Pitt Street Bridge Green Heron because it’s so colorful and the strong reflections of the broken reeds.
I was just down in Kiawah and spotted this Green Heron along the edge of a creek. He had his head feathers flared and had just been flirting with his partner who happened to be hiding in the bushes on the other side of the creek.
Here are a few other pics I’ve taken of this spunky little heron.
I’m working on a portrait of a Great Egret at the moment, but I’m looking forward to painting the Green Heron sometime soon. I’m not sure yet how I will choose to portray him, but I’ve got some good ideas now.
“One of the joys of being an artist is having the freedom to follow my passion….”
What’s next?
Drawing by William R. Beebe