WBW XXXII

       Night Herons In Flight boom boom Afternoon Delight!

  Fretting about light is the nature photographers constant gripe. That and the fact that our subjects don't keep appointments, are notoriously short tempered, and inclined to stomp off just when your ready for business. In contrast, the Night heron  doing duty in the header photo was a remarkably pleasant and cooperative client and I was grateful to get pictures of him in a contemplative mood pond side and then later, in the air, where it flew nearly as gracefully as a gull. The delightful afternoon sun was high and blazing when we chanced upon each other. Without a perfect angle harsh shadows would have thrown otherwise wonderful takes into a yin yang debacle of darkness and light. This little road side pond was perfectly placed to let me roll up in the car and snag nicely lit pictures of the Night heron and also a Great egret. To view a few extra pond pictures click here. 

Bird photography is a solitary passion that requires your eye to be pasted to the rear end of a black box. Directing the action is not an option generally. This day I had the consummate assistant in the form of a Red Winged black bird who stirred the air and kept the big birds riled up just enough to ignore what is often a cameraman's obtrusive, mood killing presence.

  Have you, like this Night heron, ever been pursued by an adversary who is not a physical threat but rather an annoying constant companion like the yapping dog next door, hiccups, or perhaps a bubble gum melody that clings to your subconscious like a blood thirsty tick? The Starland Vocal Bands hit record Afternoon Delight is like that for me. If I hear just one note of it I'm doomed to have it's unholy little hook running on my mental Mp3 player for days.

  Unfortunately, when I rolled the title for this post around in my mind the rhythm of Night Herons in Flight pinged Skyrockets in Flight and like a tuning fork I was shaking with it. 

  As Mother would intone, "An itch that can't be scratched!"

 

  "Thinkin' of you's workin' up my appetite!"  You won't find Night heron on the list of ingredients for a authentic Jambalaya but such was not always the case in and around the Mississippi delta. Audubon wrote of the culinary qualities of the Night heron in 1840. Perhaps a good Cajun meal was on the mind of our little Red-winged blackbird too!

"The young(Night herons) are quite as good for eating as those of the common pigeon, being tender, juicy, and fat, with very little of the fishy taste of many birds which, like them, feed on fishes and reptiles. In the neighborhood of New Orleans, and along the Mississippi as far up as Natchez, the shooting of this species is a favorite occupation with the planters, who represent it as equaling any other bird in the delicacy of its flesh."

Please except my deepest and most sincere apologies to anyone who now has Afternoon Delight stuck in their head because of me. That was not my intention!   ;-)WBW

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

    This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most beautiful treasurers, the birds.

   World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

   You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and intriguing of Earth's residents.

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!

You don't have to be a Bird Watcher or expert photographer to join in--just enjoy sharing what you bring back from your explorations and adventures into nature.
The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres!

The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs. Click on them and view their beautiful posts.

Come on it's your turn!