Buena Vista Lagoon June

This morning was the bird count at the Buena Vista Lagoon.  There weren't very many birds around, since it's summer, but we saw a lot more than we thought we would - fifty species.  We saw all of the common herons and egrets - great blue heron, great egret, snowy egret, black-crowned night-heron, green heron, and least bittern - which was great considering we hadn't been seeing many of them recently.

One of the first birds I saw was the green heron.  It was just standing out in the open on a rock in the water by the road near the nature center; it wasn't even fishing.  It just stood there looking at me until a person walked by and startled it.  Below is a photo of the green heron.

Green Heron

A great blue heron came up out of the reeds screeching and landed on a light post.  Below are two photos of it.  In the first photo, its long plume feathers are visible on the neck and back.  In the second, it's smoothed out.

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

We saw quite a few great egrets.  Below is one of them standing in the reeds.

Great Egret

Today we saw one common moorhen.  We hadn't seen them in a very long time, so it was great to see one today.  It was very shy and quickly swam to hide in the reeds.  Below is a photo of it.

Common Moorhen

There were quite a few terns today - Caspian, Forster's, and least.  Below is one of the Caspian terns.

Caspian Tern

There were a lot of least terns around.  They are very hard to photograph since they are very small, very quick, and they blend into the white clouds.  I did manage to take one good photo.  Below is a least tern.

Least Tern