Marsh birds

At the local marsh this morning, about 20 Great Egrets congregated around the edges of the shrinking pond of flooded wetland left after the abundance of June rain.  I wish I had been able to photograph the scene at 7:30 a.m. when I drove by, but went back with a camera an hour later.

Only a few Great Egrets remained from the earlier congregation.  The water level of the flooded wetland has gone down quite a bit, but is still attractive to the big waders.

Still water makes for nice reflections. Too bad I was so far away.

One by one, all the egrets eventually took off, perturbed by my presence.

I didn’t spot the Great Blue Heron until it moved to a new spot. It was well camouflaged by the dead grass in which it was standing.

And, of course, it took off shortly after I spotted it.

The reddish leaves of the dead trees and brown color of the grasses that were in the flooded areas make it look like fall has arrived here already.  But recent cool mornings and evenings will probably start that chain reaction of leaf color change soon enough.  We hardly had summer weather this year.