Heron shots from Smythe Park off Scarlett Road

[Rob'in'To]

I hit Smythe Park Sunday morning and again on Tuesday eve for a quick visit.  I ended up sitting and watching one Black Crowned Night Heron hunt for frogs in a swamp for 3o minutes or so.  I got to see him catch/eat 6 large Frogs in that time.  My shutter is not quick enough unfortunately for those shots...  so I either missed them or they were blurry.  A Great Blue Heron swooped in and chased the BCNH out of the pond in the end.  I hit another pond before leaving and found a second Great Blue Heron just relaxing (it seemed).  Here are a few pics...

The first Great Blue Heron...


The second Great Blue Heron...  I see differences from this Heron to the previous.  Is there an easy way to identify them as male/female/juvenile?


The Black Crowned Night Heron I was watching hunt/eat...


An early Sunday morning shot of a Night Heron possibly seeking breakfast...



It still amazes me to think we have such species of birds within Toronto.  Sorry for the grainy shots but I stretched my zoom to the max...  the tri-pod sure helped though.

[dizzy]

Thanks for sharing. I particularly like the last one. A nice composition with various shades of green.

Mike

[Rob'in'To]

Thank you.  I am still practicing on these off light moments...  dawn and dusk.  It's a tough spot to photograph them with my little point and shoot, stretching the zoom to the max.

It's interesting that they can find the frogs under that layer of green sludge.

[JW Mills]

Well done Rob!

[Rob'in'To]

Thanks John, this made up for the few mosquito bites on my leg and some ant chomping on my knee as well.  It was a short visit since it was close to my bed time (4:30am wake up).  So, learning about the feeding times of the Night Herons made me go later.  So, even just to watch the one feed/hunt was great!