Canon City also has Green Heron that can be found right out in the open. In fact I found one on the Canon City Riverwalk only 60-70 feet on the other side of the small pond near Raynolds Ave over the week-end and got some very good photos (yes, even though they are handheld with a super zoom lens) of it with a large fish (maybe Brown Trout) that I have posted to my BirdsAndNature <http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com> blog. I have seen Green Herons at this location every year for more than a decade and once saw one carrying nesting material. Usually I only seen one heron but I have on occasion seen two Green Herons fishing in this not very large pond in the past. They are usually present during early mornings and late afternoons though they will sometimes stay until mid-morning if no one disturbs them. When I got these very good photos I went back to my car for my camcorder and tripod but in the less than 5 minutes I was gone someone had flushed the heron. My mornings are usually busy with Breeding Bird Atlas surveys or class so I went back last evening to try to get some video of the bird. I refound it but had to wait a long time for some folks who were fishing to get close enough to video it and by then it was dusk. Though the video is not nearly as good as the still photos, it does show the heron perched very still then it's very fast forward lunge as it nails another good size fish. It also shows it adjusting the position of the fish for proper swallowing as well as it swallowing it's nice meal before it was flushed. I tried again this morning after my class to try to get some better video of the Green Heron but it had apparently already been flushed. So the darker short video clip is on my blog.
I haven't done much more birding at the Riverwalk except near the pond by Raynolds where I have heard/seen Yellow Warblers, Chats, Common Yellowthroats and Gray Catbirds. I saw a Gray Catbird over the week-end near the Raynold's bridge and this morning one was singing quite a bit. Maybe it is having a second nesting as this promotes a second peak in singing for this species. The male catbird in my neighborhood has been singing so vociferously and frequently the past several days I thought maybe it was spring again. This fellow will engage in countersinging with me and today he got a bit ruffled by this as he sang and sputtered like an angry person from a shrub less than 15 feet from where I stood. He finally had to have a look at his competitor and flew out onto my fence, sang a few more bars then flitted off into the neighbor's tree. The pond on the Riverwalk has a large cattail marsh at one end and a smaller amount at the other end. There are lots of dragonflies in these areas as well as around the pond. Dragonflies and damselflies are not only great bird food but can be colorful and interesting. By the way, the dragonfly I mentioned a week or so ago that I found at the Holcim Wetlands and thought was a Roseate Skimmer was confirmed by the a reviewer on Colorado Dragonfly Network, which Scott Severs posted about, and then from the Dragonfly Society of the Americas. Thanks to Scott for the information as the folks on these sites have been very nice and helpful to this novice odonate watcher. SeEtta Moss Canon City http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
