{"id":144097,"date":"2023-10-02T06:07:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T12:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=144097"},"modified":"2023-10-02T08:37:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T14:37:02","slug":"a-great-egret-a-great-blue-heron-and-a-serious-territorial-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/02\/a-great-egret-a-great-blue-heron-and-a-serious-territorial-dispute\/","title":{"rendered":"A Great Egret, A Great Blue Heron And A Serious Territorial Dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

With birds you just never know what might happen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A week ago today I was beginning my trip home after a morning spent photographing birds at Bear River MBR when I came across this Great Egret perched on an old snag sticking out of the far side of the Bear River. ‘He’ was calm and relaxed so I got quite a few photos of him while he was perched there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He even roused a couple of times, indicating to me that he wasn’t nervous about anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eventually he took off to the east. He seemed to be in no hurry, as suggested by his leisurely and elegant, one-footed takeoff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’m including several photos of him immediately after takeoff just because…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I like them, even though he was already slightly past me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I got lots of photos of him in flight after he dropped down next to the river. It was at this point that I began to sense some urgency in his flight. His wing strokes had become more powerful as he picked up speed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Suddenly he veered to the north, gaining elevation quickly in order to clear the riverbank.<\/p>\n

I think this is an interesting photo in its own right because both his shadow on the riverbank and part of the white bird itself are reflected separately on the water. I don’t remember seeing that in my photos before. Maybe I just didn’t notice.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until this photo that I realized why the egret had turned on his afterburners. A Great Blue Heron was right on his tail. Prior to this, I had no idea there was a heron anywhere in the area.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And the heron wasn’t playing around. It was in full attack mode.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The egret banked sharply in an effort to lose his pursuer, or at least to put more distance between them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The long chase was on. Notice that the heron is squawking at the egret. Even at this distance I could hear it.<\/p>\n

After this shot I got…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

dozens of photos of them flying north with the heron still in hot pursuit. It lasted so long I eventually just stopped taking photos and after a while they disappeared as tiny dots against the mountains.<\/p>\n

I had the impression that the heron wasn’t going to give up until it had chased the egret into the next county. Which would have been Oneida County, in Idaho.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: Image techs for these photos are in the range of 1\/4000 – 1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 320 – 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With birds you just never know what might happen. (12 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[338,334,394,1094,4752],"tags":[49,3869,146,712,713,994,1100,311],"class_list":["post-144097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-great-blue-herons","category-great-egrets","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-chase","tag-flight","tag-great-blue-heron","tag-great-egret","tag-rouse","tag-territorial-dispute","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/great-egret-8019-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Bu9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144097"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144159,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144097\/revisions\/144159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}