Yesterday, myself and another ornithologist recovered the dead body of an adult black-crowned night-heron from City Park in Denver, CO. The bird’s foot was tangled in discarded fishing line that was then wound around a tree branch in a rookery. Based on the bird being unable to leave the tree branch, it died slowly, unable to get free.
This morning I went to Belmar Park in Lakewood, CO to photograph birds. I found fishing line in the mouth of an adult great blue heron that had just brought a meal of fish to its nestlings. Worse yet, I found a double-crested cormorant, tangled in fishing line, hanging dead from a tree in the rookery.
Improperly discarded fishing line kills birds in terrible ways. It’s not just an issue in an ocean far away, or in fishing towns, it’s an issue right in your local parks. Please properly account for and dispose of fishing line and encourage others to be responsible as well. Life is hard enough for wild animals, don’t make it that much harder.
A great blue heron at twilight on the Seekonk River! @earnestattempts and I got to watch it fish in the shallows for a good half hour while I finger painted this on my phone, the longest I’ve been around one. Looooong neck…..it only flew off when a teen started splashing around nearby looking for crabs and turtles, haha.
The Great Blue Heron, Ardea herodias (Pelecaniformes - Ardeidae), is the largest of the North American herons. Though very common and widespread from Canada to north of South America, find these herons is always a majestic sight, specially when they mate, such as this male displaying.
Displays include stretching neck up with bill pointing skyward, flying in circles above colony with neck extended, stretching neck forward with head and neck feathers erected and then snapping bill shut.
Despite their impressive size (up to 137 cm in length and up to 201 cm in wingspan), Great Blue Herons weigh only 5 to 6 pounds thanks in part to their hollow bones (a feature all birds share).
This piece is for our local storm drain art exhibition, to raise awareness for the health of our local endangered creek. I’ve never seen a heron within the town limits, personally, but maybe someday, when the creek ecosystem is doing better, I might!
My storm drain painting has been going painfully slowly. I kinda blame burnout from work, its making most art hard to work on, but im gonna try to plug through as much as I can tonight. So far I’ve barely finished the background, but I do like how it looks at least.
I think I’ve finished the background area. Tomorrow I’ll start tackling the creek
Apparently I forgot to update the last wip. Regardless, its almost there, but I worked till about 2 am last night and had to stop, so hopefully I can knock out the last part tonight when I get home.
My storm drain painting has been going painfully slowly. I kinda blame burnout from work, its making most art hard to work on, but im gonna try to plug through as much as I can tonight. So far I’ve barely finished the background, but I do like how it looks at least.
I think I’ve finished the background area. Tomorrow I’ll start tackling the creek
My storm drain painting has been going painfully slowly. I kinda blame burnout from work, its making most art hard to work on, but im gonna try to plug through as much as I can tonight. So far I’ve barely finished the background, but I do like how it looks at least.
Gonna be doing another storm drain piece this year. This time, I’m doing a Great Blue Heron. Just finished the rough sketch, now I just gotta toss it on paper and locate my watercolors
We visited the Wellness Botanical Center in Elkhart, IN, originally to see the tulip gardens they are famous for. With out crazy weather, the tulips had not bloomed yet but we were able to see the daffodil gardens. My surprise came with a long visit by the Blue Heron in the lake. One of my favorite birds.
