Yesterday morning at 7:20 am I noticed a juvenile heron that was very different than the usual juvenile and adult black-crowned night herons that frequent this stretch of Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis.
The bird was on the s. side of the creek, w. of 28th Ave. S., where the creek exits Lake Hiawatha. At that time I noted the following field marks: long greenish-yellow legs, dark overall color (not light brown like bcnh), back spreckled with tiny white dots, front with fine streaking, bill heavy and all black (noticed this was a very different bill than the juv bcnh), face with a bit of lighter area below cheek, seemed smaller because was slimmer, not as chunky as the bcnh juveniles. I couldn't relocate the bird this morning, so tried again this evening with Linda Whyte. The creek was flooded with today's rainfall, eliminating all their usual sandbars and low perches. But at Lake Hiawatha, at about 7:30 pm, we saw at least 8 night herons all grouped along the shore on the west side of where the creek enters the lake. We walked onto the golf course, just across the golf cart creek bridge, to get a closer view. We did see what we believe is the same bird. Although the light was fading fast, we noted the following additional field marks: long slim neck, red eye, dark color with small white spots on back (although color not to be trusted due to low light), when it flew off we carefully watched the legs and feet, and the legs and feet clearly showed extended past the tail (this field mark was very clear against the cloudy sky despite the low light). I hope someone else can locate this bird and verify our sighting! Diana Doyle S. Minneapolis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20070918/fecb82e8/attachment.html
