ML621398445
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Immature Unknown sex - 1
Media notes
Subadult Tricolored Heron, initially found earlier in the day by Alexander Yan, here photographed by Curtis A. Marantz on 11 July 2024 at Malibu Lagoon, Malibu Lagoon State Park, Malibu, Los Angeles County, California.
Observation details
I arrived to find Boscoe looking at the continuing heron as it stood at the south end of the small island along the western edge of the lagoon, but over time it moved all around the lagoon, foraging in the shallow water in the western part of the lagoon and ending up on an island in the middle of the lagoon south of the bridge. Between its periods roosting on the islands, this bird foraged actively, often moving rapidly while foraging and flying repeatedly across the deeper channels, covering remarkable distances quickly either on foot or in flight. Not surprisingly, I never heard this bird vocalize. This was a relatively small and conspicuously slim heron that was similar in size to nearby Snowy Egrets, if not just a very slight bit smaller, and with a somewhat longer and seemingly slimmer bill. I thought the dagger-like bill was at least twice as long as the head was wide, and also that it tapered evenly yet subtly from a base of medium-depth to a pointed tip along a culmen that was hardly decurved. The forehead was imperceptible, with the line of the culmen merging with the flat crown back to the rounded nape. The head was quite slim even for a heron, and not expanding conspicuously relative to the neck, which itself was slim, long, and with an s-shaped curve. Typical of a heron, this bird’s body was plump and full-chested. When foraging, this bird’s posture ranged from not quite diagonal to almost horizontal when if stood belly-deep in the water with the neck retracted and the bill held straight forward, but when it was roosting, the posture of the body was steeper than diagonal with the tail apparently held downward in the plane of the body. The tail was short, in that it was about a third the length of the body without the head and neck, parallel-sided, and essentially square-tipped, albeit with a very slight curve inward at the tips of the outer feathers. The closed wings were relatively short and rounded, yet the extended a short distance beyond the tip of the tail. I suspect this bird may have been missing tertials, but the ones that I could see feel a bit short of the wingtips, suggesting there was at least a short primary projection if the tertials were all present. I saw the flying bird only briefly, albeit on multiple occasions, when I thought the wings were moderately long and with somewhat rounded wingtips. I think the bird flew with the neck retracted, at least at times, but my memory of this is now a bit weak. The legs were slim and quite long, maybe even proportionately longer than those of the Snowy Egrets, but not by much. The toes were also long and slim, but I did not see them well, given that this bird spent most of its time wading in the shallow water. This was a colorful and boldly marked bird with unique plumage patterns, especially among the small herons. The forehead, crown, superciliary region, and auriculars were a deep blue to grayish blue back nearly to the rear crown and nape, which had a brick-red cast at least partway down the back of the upper neck, and with the dark color curving under the colorful skin around the eyes and as a blackish band that extended forward before the eye before ending just under the gape. The chin and throat were white before blending to the brick-red that extended from the rear part of the throat down the center of the foreneck almost to the midway point on the neck, below which the stripe continued narrowly, but less conspicuously down the lower part of the neck to the breast. On either side of the reddish stripe down the center of the foreneck was a slate-blue stripe on either side, followed by a white stripe on either side of the lower part of the neck and breast. Extending down the center of the back of the upper neck was a short, whitish plume, but I think back of the neck was generally dark bluish. I further thought the sides of the lower neck were a brick-red to rufescent, and thus contrasting with the deep bluish on upper part of the neck. When seen from the front, the breast was dark bluish, with a narrow stripe of dull reddish in the center, and white stripes on either side on the lower neck. The dark breast extended as a broad point in the center down to the upper belly, but with the sides, flanks, belly, and undertail coverts snowy-white and unmarked. I never saw the underside of the tail, but when the bird took flight, I noted that the grayish underside of the remiges contrasted sharply with white underwing-coverts. Returning to the upperparts, the back was about the same shade of deep bluish as the crown and neck, but the feathers were slim and with a wispy appearance that made it difficult to distinguish the mantle and scapular feathers. The lower part of the back likewise had wispy feathers, but they were more brownish to grayish-brown in color. The closed wing contrasted the grayish-brown that characterized the lesser coverts, outer greater coverts, and remiges, with a dark bluish or grayish-blue band across the median coverts that also appeared to continue across the inner few greater-coverts and tertials. I nevertheless noted a conspicuous contrast between the dark bluish tertials and the lighter and more brownish-gray primaries and secondaries. I was unsure about the color of the rump, but the uppertail coverts were at least narrowly white, and the upperside of the tail was a light, bluish-gray in color. The bill was sharply bicolored, with the upper mandible entirely black, but the lower was mostly a deep yellow in color from the base to the tip, but possibly with some black along the sides distally. Separating the black base of the upper mandible from the brownish irides were the deep yellow lores, supraloral region, and narrow orbital-ring. Contributing to the odd face pattern was a narrow, black bar extending directly back just below the lores from the base of the upper mandible to about the gape, and immediately above the black band a similar bar of yellow extending through the lores to the base of the upper mandible. I further noted that the dark bluish-gray of the forehead continued right down to the base of the upper mandible, thus separating the yellow that extended through the supraloral stripes. The legs and toes were a relatively bright, olive-yellow in color, appearing neither overly greenish nor purely yellow.
Technical information
- Model
- ILCE-7RM5
- Lens
- FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS
- ISO
- 320
- Focal length
- 600 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/8.0
- Shutter speed
- 1/800 sec
- Dimensions
- 5067 pixels x 3010 pixels
- Original file size
- 16.35 MB