Late yesterday afternoon an excited fellow photographer told me that that she had spotted a pair of Little Blue Herons (Egretta caerulea) at Huntley Meadows Park. I had no idea if her identification was accurate, but I knew that sightings of Little Blue Herons are pretty unusual in our area.
I rushed to the place she had described and eventually I was able to spot the two herons in the back area of a beaver pond. As I observed them from a distance, I couldn’t help but notice the mottled colors of the feathers of the one on the left. Last year a couple of juvenile Little Blue Herons, which were entirely white, spent some time at the park, but this one, which I assume is an adolescent, seemed to be transitioning to a darker plumage. The colors of the adult, which I was seeing for the first time, were equally amazing, with beautiful shades of maroon and dark blue.
After some grooming, the light-colored heron flew to another tree and shortly thereafter they both took off into the air. I was happy that I was able to get a few in-flight shots of these beautiful birds. I’ll be looking for them on my next visits to the park, but suspect they were merely making a rest stop on a longer journey.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Very nice shots. It´s interesting to see birds of different ages side by side like that.
Thanks. This is one of those cases when the change is really distinct–it’s almost hard to believe the two birds are the same species.
I’ve seen the adults, but not the juveniles. It is quite a pronounced color change, isn’t it? I missed getting to the rookeries this spring (where did spring go?) so I’m especially glad to see this.
Last year we had some immature Little Blue Herons at our park and I was able to do a few posts about them, including this fun one with one of them interacting with a large turtle. (https://michaelqpowell.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/little-blue-heron-and-turtle/). Until my recent encounter, I had never seen an adult.
It’s nice to see them. I’ll probably never see them here in NH.
You’re almost certainly right, Allen. It was quite shocking for us when we had a couple of immature Little Blue Heron hang out for a number of weeks last year and this was the first time that I had seen an adult one.
It is always intriguing to see two different colourings of the same species together. In your case it might be that they are immature birds. We saw white and charcoal Reef Egrets as couples at the reef last summer and that was amazing.
I’ve gotten used to the idea of male and female birds looking very different, but somehow it is more startling for me when you have young ones that start out totally white and then later turn a dark slate blue.
Great shots, Mike!!
We are seeing a lot of Little Blues of all ages here this month, as it’s been their nesting season. It is wonderful to see how their blue coloring evolves.
Thanks. Little Blue Herons are a rare treat here, so I was super excited to see these ones.