{"id":108065,"date":"2022-11-15T04:06:18","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T11:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=108065"},"modified":"2022-11-15T05:13:50","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T12:13:50","slug":"great-blue-heron-on-driftwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/11\/15\/great-blue-heron-on-driftwood\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Blue Heron On Driftwood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I drove up to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fws.gov\/refuge\/bear-river-migratory-bird\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge<\/span><\/a> early yesterday morning where the first bird I photographed was a Great Blue Heron standing on driftwood.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload aligncenter wp-image-108062 size-full\" title=\"Morning Great Blue Heron standing on driftwood\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079.jpg\" data-orig-src=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079.jpg\" alt=\"Morning Great Blue Heron standing on driftwood, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah\" width=\"900\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%27%20width%3D%27900%27%20height%3D%27643%27%20viewBox%3D%270%200%20900%20643%27%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%27900%27%20height%3D%27643%27%20fill-opacity%3D%220%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079-200x143.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079-250x179.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079-400x286.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079-600x429.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079-800x572.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079.jpg 900w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-orig-sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Morning Great Blue Heron standing on driftwood \u2013 Nikon D500, f6.3, 1\/2500, ISO 640, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Great Blue Heron was on the wrong side of my Jeep but I still rolled down the passenger side window. Then I stretched my body across the console, rested my lens on the edge of the window, and photographed the heron from there.<\/p>\n<p>I knew I only had a few seconds to photographed the heron because I could see a pickup moving up the road behind me so I made those few moments count. The light was gorgeous, the heron stately, and the piece of driftwood interesting.<\/p>\n<p>That piece of driftwood may have at one point been a tree growing high in the Uinta Mountains of Utah where the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bear_River_(Great_Salt_Lake)#\/media\/File:Bearrivermap.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Bear River<\/span><\/a> starts to flow. It also could have grown in Wyoming or Idaho because the Bear River flows through those states too. Wherever it grew that piece of driftwood has been lodged in this spot at the refuge for quite a few years. I&#8217;ve photographed other birds on that fine, old piece of wood.<\/p>\n<p>Great Blue Herons are year round residents of the marsh and wetlands on the refuge. These large wading birds survive and thrive in the very harsh conditions of winter in northern Utah. This species always fascinates me because they look and sound like prehistoric creatures in a modern day world.<\/p>\n<p>For a few second I was glad to be able to focus on this handsome heron on the driftwood with my eyes and through my viewfinder.<\/p>\n<p>Life<em> is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n<p>Mia<\/p>\n<p>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/great-blue-heron-images\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Great Blue Heron photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I drove up to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge early yesterday morning where the first bird I photographed was a Great Blue Heron standing on driftwood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,27,1148,166,26],"tags":[4004,4117,970,1996,4620,3987,627,626,4094,4378,953,313,3996,4095],"class_list":["post-108065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","category-avian","category-box-elder-county-utah","category-great-blue-herons","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-ardea-herodias","tag-autumn","tag-driftwood","tag-fall","tag-great-blue-heron","tag-heron","tag-herons","tag-marsh","tag-morning","tag-standing","tag-wading-birds","tag-water","tag-wetlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/great-blue-heron-marsh-mia-mcpherson-4079.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-s6Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":98387,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2021\/12\/22\/great-blue-heron-photos-taken-on-the-winter-solstice\/","url_meta":{"origin":108065,"position":0},"title":"Great Blue Heron Photos Taken on The Winter Solstice","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"To my delight I was able to take Great Blue Heron photos yesterday on the Winter Solstice that I found on the banks of the Bear River at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Winter Great Blue Heron landing on a log, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/great-blue-heron-bear-river-landing-mia-mcpherson-0605.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/great-blue-heron-bear-river-landing-mia-mcpherson-0605.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/great-blue-heron-bear-river-landing-mia-mcpherson-0605.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/great-blue-heron-bear-river-landing-mia-mcpherson-0605.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":62970,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/01\/20\/concentrating-on-great-blue-herons-in-winter\/","url_meta":{"origin":108065,"position":1},"title":"Concentrating On Great Blue Herons In Winter","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"January 20, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"There were plenty of Great Blue Herons to photograph yesterday morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and I was more than happy to take photos of them.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great Blue Heron in winter at Bear River MBR, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/great-blue-heron-frozen-marsh-flight-mia-mcpherson-4283.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/great-blue-heron-frozen-marsh-flight-mia-mcpherson-4283.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/great-blue-heron-frozen-marsh-flight-mia-mcpherson-4283.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/great-blue-heron-frozen-marsh-flight-mia-mcpherson-4283.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":99752,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/02\/09\/winter-great-blue-heron-images\/","url_meta":{"origin":108065,"position":2},"title":"Winter Great Blue Heron Images","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"February 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"While I was at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge two days ago I was able to take quite a few Great Blue Heron images of four individual herons in the marsh.\u00a0","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Resting Great Blue Heron on a February morning, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/great-blue-heron-winter-marsh-mia-mcpherson-8145.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/great-blue-heron-winter-marsh-mia-mcpherson-8145.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/great-blue-heron-winter-marsh-mia-mcpherson-8145.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/great-blue-heron-winter-marsh-mia-mcpherson-8145.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":106378,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/09\/20\/great-blue-heron-with-a-cow\/","url_meta":{"origin":108065,"position":3},"title":"Great Blue Heron With A Cow","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"September 20, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This morning I decided to share photos of a Great Blue Heron with a cow behind it that I photographed resting on a snag above the Bear River.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great Blue Heron in front of a cow, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/great-blue-heron-cow-at-sunrise-mia-mcpherson-5038.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/great-blue-heron-cow-at-sunrise-mia-mcpherson-5038.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/great-blue-heron-cow-at-sunrise-mia-mcpherson-5038.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/great-blue-heron-cow-at-sunrise-mia-mcpherson-5038.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":63480,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/01\/28\/great-blue-herons-in-heavy-fog-at-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/","url_meta":{"origin":108065,"position":4},"title":"Great Blue Herons In Heavy Fog At Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"January 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"These foggy Great Blue Heron photos are probably the foggiest images in my portfolio and despite that I truly like how they turned out.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great Blue Heron landing in heavy fog. Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/great-blue-heron-heavy-fog-landing-mia-mcpherson-5842.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/great-blue-heron-heavy-fog-landing-mia-mcpherson-5842.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/great-blue-heron-heavy-fog-landing-mia-mcpherson-5842.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/great-blue-heron-heavy-fog-landing-mia-mcpherson-5842.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":48420,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/09\/11\/wading-birds-at-bear-river-mbr-yesterday\/","url_meta":{"origin":108065,"position":5},"title":"Wading Birds At Bear River MBR Yesterday","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"September 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I had fun photographing the juvenile Great Blue Heron, juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron and the adult Snowy Egret yesterday at Bear River MBR. I especially loved the clearer skies.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Flying juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron with Promontory Mountains in the distance, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/black-crowned-night-heron-juvenile-flight-promontory-mia-mcpherson-2755.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/black-crowned-night-heron-juvenile-flight-promontory-mia-mcpherson-2755.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/black-crowned-night-heron-juvenile-flight-promontory-mia-mcpherson-2755.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/black-crowned-night-heron-juvenile-flight-promontory-mia-mcpherson-2755.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}