Messy!

Life is messy. Sometimes, in some places, the mess is hidden. It's underwater, or too small to see, or too big, too far away. And sometimes, it's everywhere you look.

Reifel Island is a good place to find it.

Tree, without the leaves to disguise the disorderly branches.

Unidentified plant, gone to seed, half fallen over the bank. The purple flowers are purple nightshade.

Mallard, daisies, and pond scum.

Bee on thistle, with pollen dust, and a tangle of assorted plants as background.

Windborne seed, on goldenrod. With assorted flies and ants, all tied together with spider webs.

Ripening crabapples, with spotty, dying leaves. And spider web, of course.

Blackberries, green, red, spotty, black, and purple. With dead flowers. And spider webs.

More pond scum, rotting weeds, and a neat little brown sparrow.

Busy bee on thistle, skipper waiting his turn, and more spider webs.

Black-crowned night heron, in his favourite spot. 

I'm sure there were spider webs around the heron, too.

Bigfoots

Well, that was quick. I posted the photo of feet at 12:44 yesterday morning, and 10 minutes later, Paul in Powell River had the answer. The right answer; yes, it was a young sandhill crane, a colt.

Two youngsters saw us on one of the paths on Reifel Island, and came running when I rattled my bag of goodies. Laurie took photos, while I tried to tempt them to come closer. About 1 meter was their limit. I was already crouched, making myself small and non-threatening, so I looked at feet.

The pair of sandhill colts.

It's surprising how some of the most beautiful birds have such unlovely feet.

I noticed something odd about the sandhills' toes. Like most birds, there are four on each foot, arranged with three forward, one pointing back. But look at that rear toe. It's barely a stub, and I can't see any sign of a toenail.

Compare it to a Great Blue heron's rear toes:

Heron, Cougar Creek

... and his feet.

The heron has full-size rear toes, suitable for perching in trees or standing on slippery logs. The sandhill crane has to rely on those front toes only. Is this why I've never seen one in a tree?

And here's a Black Crowned Night Heron, another wader that sleeps in trees.

Long, almost prehensile toes, front and rear.

A few useful links:

• A sandhill crane's foot on Flickr. This one seems to have a rudimentary nail.
• A series of photos of fantastic bird feet, on Burdr. No sandhills or herons, though.
• A rundown of the different shapes of bird feet. Fernbank Science Center.
• Wild Turkey feet. From Hybrid Birder. They're very similar to the sandhill's feet, if a lot shorter. The hind toe is up where it does no good, and the nail is stubby. Interesting. I never would have thought to look, but for Rebecca's comment.

Catching the red eye

This black crowned night heron was sleeping soundly in a tree by the Reifel Island warming shed, but I made too much racket, and he opened a bloodshot eye to glare at me.

Sorry about that. I'll go away quietly now.

His scientific name, Nycticorax nycticorax, translates as "Night raven night raven";  repeated twice, emphasizing that he really, really appreciates being left to sleep in the daytime. He works the night shift, hunting the same grounds as our great blue herons do in daylight, catching frogs, fish, crustaceans and other small animals.

He's not a raven, but got the name, doubled, because his call is like a crow's. Listen to it here. (Cornell "All about Birds")

From Cornell's "Cool Facts":

Young Black-crowned Night-Herons often disgorge their stomach contents when disturbed. This habit makes it easy to study its diet. ...
Adult Black-crowned Night-Herons apparently do not distinguish between their own young and those from other nests, and will brood chicks not their own.

A few big birds

Tidying up the computer, I found a few birds I'd meant to post and forgot. These are from mid-October.

Black-crowned night heron. We saw him return from an errand, and he hadn't had time to fade into the background yet.

Young swan below the Westham Island bridge. Black bill, buff and grey plumage.

Black and white; swan and sunlight on water.

Peaceful, but alert. A resting mallard at Reifel Island.

Life runs in the springtime, I still walk.

I am so far behind; I'm still sorting Reifel Island birds, and we've been since then to the Watershed Park, looking for mushrooms and finding other stuff, instead, and to the Boundary Bay dunes and wetland, watching hawks and lichen. And my garden is up, the slugs are revving up their motors, the pregnant squirrel is suddenly skinny again. I've discovered a new hermit crab in my aquarium. My little desk spider is getting fat and pretty. I have parties to go to, gardens to visit. So much to blog about!

And so little time!

One thing I know; I can do anything, go anywhere, one step at a time. Walk across the city (I have), the continent (I haven't, but I could) and back, one step after another. It can be done. One foot in front of the other; repeat.

So here's one step, still on Reifel Island. The black-crowned night heron that sleeps over the slough by the office.

Sleeping

Not sleeping

All shook up

Tomorrow, the Watershed, I think.

Still not raining ...

And more Reifel Island birds ...

Little browns and a redwing blackbird waiting their turn at the feeder

Coot, not stepping on his own feet

Question: Why do great blue herons so often look so downright miserable?

Pintail

Pintail tail

Not a bird

A couple of families of sandhill cranes had taken over one of the low islets in the outer ponds. We counted four adults, or maybe five, and seven youngsters.  The adults had no interest in humans at the moment, but several of the kids were curious, and waded over to check us out.

Knee deep

Thigh deep

We were on a steep bank, and two of the cranes, arriving at a rough patch of logs and weeds, stayed in the water, watching us through the shrubbery. Another two found a bit of a trail through the blackberry canes, and climbed up, hoping for free munchies. They ended up eating most of the remainder of my seed.

Thanks! Those were delicious!

Water and sky. Microdot birds.

By the exit, one of the black crowned night herons was sitting in full view. A juvenile hid in the branches over the slough; his mottled coat blended in almost perfectly with the mixed greys of the bark and lichens.

One-legged, black-crowned, red-eyed, adult night heron.

A photographer had set up his digiscope equipment just a few metres away from the young heron; great whopper of a scope, tall tripod, camera, bag of accessories ... He was fussing around, adjusting the focus, removing and replacing the camera, making more adjustments.  He was probably going to be able to get a photo of the heron's eyelashes. I confess to a bit of envy.

But it was raining now; we took our couple of quick, iffy photos and put away the cameras before they got wet. As we left, I looked back; the photographer was busy drying his camera with a rag. The spotting scope was still standing in the rain. Maybe I wasn't so envious, after all. We got into the dry car, turned on the windshield wipers and went home.