ML611790921
Contribuidor
Fecha
Localidad
- Edad
- No especificado
- Sexo
- No especificado
- Comportamientos
- Volando
Detalles de la observación
Third record for Nova Scotia (perhaps the same returning individual from the second record at nearby Argyle Head earlier this year) and the fourth record for Canada outside of Newfoundland. The other non-NL Canadian record was an adult in the Covehead Ligthhouse area, PEI, Aug 6-Oct 10, 2022. Newfoundland has 7 records (see https://birdtherock.com/gray-heron/). Kathleen and I parked at the bridge at Sainte Anne du Ruisseau (SAR) to look for the small white egret reported to me by Colton d'Eon yesterday. The egret wasn't visible, but two blue herons flew off when we arrived. Kathleen looked at them as they took off and flew and shared that she thought one of them could be a Gray Heron. The intriguing heron landed on opposite bank of the river where we were able to observe it with a scope and take some images to confirm the species. Kathleen then posted to the NS-RBA Discord channel to alert other birders of the find. The SAR bird shows overall pale plumage, white headlights (bend in the wing), whitish thighs, dark vertical foreneck markings contrasting with a whitish foreneck, contrastingly dark flank stripe, and overall stocky proportions of Gray Heron, the Afro-Eurasian counterpart of Great Blue Heron. The pale (whitish?) forehead and median crown contrasting with the dark grayish-blue lateral crown and what appears to be a pale maxilla means that this individual is a 2nd-cycle (2nd winter/2nd basic) or adult. Better images of the crown and flight feathers would be required to accurately age this individual. A 2nd-cycle bird would show 2 generations of primaries and an adult can show up to 3 generations of primaries (Howell et al. 2014). Previous Nova Scotia Records: June 30-Aug 22, 2020 -- Miners Marsh/Canning, Kings (adult) -- NS Birds 62 (4)** Jan 27-Mar 31, 2023 -- Argyle Head, Yarmouth (juv.) -- NS Birds 65 (2) ** Note that the 2020 individual was later seen in Massachusetts in Sep 2020 and likely in Virginia in Oct/Nov 2020.
Información técnica
- Model
- NIKON D7000
- Lens
- 300.0 mm f/4.0
- ISO
- 3200
- Focal length
- 300 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/5.0
- Shutter speed
- 1/1000 sec
- Dimensions
- 1131 pixels x 659 pixels
- Original file size
- 398.84 KB