{"id":115878,"date":"2023-09-15T04:40:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T10:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=115878"},"modified":"2023-09-29T03:09:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T09:09:34","slug":"late-summer-great-blue-heron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2023\/09\/15\/late-summer-great-blue-heron\/","title":{"rendered":"Late Summer Great Blue Heron"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I photographed this late summer, adult Great Blue Heron resting on a human-made nest box at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area a few days ago.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload aligncenter wp-image-115875 size-full\" title=\"Late summer Great Blue Heron at Farmington Bay WMA\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460.jpg\" data-orig-src=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460.jpg\" alt=\"Late summer Great Blue Heron at Farmington Bay WMA, Davis 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\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460-200x143.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460-250x179.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460-400x286.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460-600x429.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460-768x549.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460-800x572.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460.jpg 900w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-orig-sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Late summer Great Blue Heron at Farmington Bay WMA \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This heron got me thinking about all the times I&#8217;ve captured images of this species over the years in various locations and weather conditions.<\/p>\n<div class=\"flex flex-grow flex-col gap-3 max-w-full\">\n<div class=\"min-h-[20px] flex flex-col items-start gap-3 overflow-x-auto whitespace-pre-wrap break-words\">\n<div class=\"markdown prose w-full break-words dark:prose-invert light\">\n<p>I&#8217;ve photographed Great Blue Herons in Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and beyond. I have photographed them on the Gulf Coast, on the shores of the hypersaline Great Salt Lake, near alpine creeks, rivers, streams, swamps, ponds, fresh and saltwater marshes, sloughs, and wetlands. I&#8217;ve even taken photos of them in desert ranchlands and high in the mountains. Plus, I&#8217;ve photographed them close to home in urban settings.<\/p>\n<p>I have taken images of Great Blue Herons in soft morning light, evening light, heavy fog, thick snow, backlit, sidelit, and in 35-knot winds with the Belt of Venus and the Earth Shadow behind them. I&#8217;ve photographed them in temperatures well below freezing and in temps over 100\u00b0F.<\/p>\n<p>My cameras have focused on these herons hunting, fishing, resting, courting, coughing up pellets, eating, displaying, flying, landing, fighting, nesting and more. I&#8217;ve photographed both adult and immature Great Blue Herons.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, I have been blessed to have Great Blue Herons in my viewfinder thousands upon thousands of times. Despite the fact that Great Blue Herons are abundant and found in many different habitats, I still get excited when I can find and photograph them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Great_blue_heron\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Great Blue Herons<\/span><\/a> in my viewfinder bring me joy. They get my heart pumping. I suspect that they always will. Every freaking time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Life<em> is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n<p>Mia<\/p>\n<p>Click <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/great-blue-heron-images\/\">here<\/a><\/span> to see more of my Great Blue Heron photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I photographed this late summer, adult Great Blue Heron resting on a human-made nest box at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area a few days ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,1022,697,166,26],"tags":[4004,4117,4366,3987,627,626,4094,2279,4156,2315,313,3996,4095],"class_list":["post-115878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-davis-county-utah","category-farmington-bay-wma","category-great-blue-herons","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-ardea-herodias","tag-cattails","tag-great-blue-heron","tag-heron","tag-herons","tag-marsh","tag-nest-box","tag-resting","tag-summer-3","tag-wading-birds","tag-water","tag-wetlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-late-summer-mia-mcpherson-0460.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-u90","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":116479,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2023\/09\/29\/fall-great-blue-heron-flasher\/","url_meta":{"origin":115878,"position":0},"title":"Fall Great Blue Heron Flasher","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"September 29, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this week, I found this adult Great Blue Heron in a Flasher pose while resting on a human-made nest in a pond at Farmington Bay WMA in northern Utah.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fall Great Blue Heron Flasher pose at Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-autumn-flasher-mia-mcpherson-1746.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-autumn-flasher-mia-mcpherson-1746.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-autumn-flasher-mia-mcpherson-1746.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/great-blue-heron-autumn-flasher-mia-mcpherson-1746.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":42654,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2016\/10\/15\/great-blue-heron-resting-in-a-canada-goose-nest-at-farmington-bay-wma\/","url_meta":{"origin":115878,"position":1},"title":"Great Blue Heron Resting In A Canada Goose Nest At Farmington Bay WMA","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"October 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Two days ago when I found this Great Blue Heron resting in the goose nest I knew I had to photograph it because of the autumn colors in the background.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great Blue Heron resting in a Canada Goose nest, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/great-blue-heron-nest-mia-mcpherson-7185.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/great-blue-heron-nest-mia-mcpherson-7185.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/great-blue-heron-nest-mia-mcpherson-7185.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/great-blue-heron-nest-mia-mcpherson-7185.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":100076,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/02\/18\/great-blue-herons-at-the-farmington-bay-rookery\/","url_meta":{"origin":115878,"position":2},"title":"Great Blue Herons At The Farmington Bay Rookery","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"February 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The breeding season has begun for the Great Blue Herons at the Farmington Bay rookery and throughout northern Utah.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great Blue Herons at the Farmington Bay rookery, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/great-blue-herons-rookery-mia-mcpherson-3757.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-herons-rookery-mia-mcpherson-3757.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/great-blue-herons-rookery-mia-mcpherson-3757.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/great-blue-herons-rookery-mia-mcpherson-3757.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":76421,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/12\/22\/great-blue-heron-resting-on-a-goose-nest\/","url_meta":{"origin":115878,"position":3},"title":"Great Blue Heron Resting On A Goose Nest","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"When I found this Great Blue Heron resting on a man made goose nest yesterday morning at Farmington Bay WMA I knew I wanted to photograph it.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great Blue Heron resting on a man made goose nest, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah\u00a0","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/great-blue-heron-on-goose-nest-mia-mcpherson-2118.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/great-blue-heron-on-goose-nest-mia-mcpherson-2118.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/great-blue-heron-on-goose-nest-mia-mcpherson-2118.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/great-blue-heron-on-goose-nest-mia-mcpherson-2118.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":120230,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2024\/01\/29\/great-blue-herons-at-the-farmington-bay-wma-rookery\/","url_meta":{"origin":115878,"position":4},"title":"Great Blue Herons At The Farmington Bay WMA Rookery","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"January 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday morning, I was surprised to find Great Blue Herons already at the nests of the rookery at Farmington Bay WMA. There were more than twenty herons.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Great Blue Herons on the rookery at Farmington Bay WMA in January, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/great-blue-herons-rookery-utah-mia-mcpherson-3862.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/great-blue-herons-rookery-utah-mia-mcpherson-3862.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/great-blue-herons-rookery-utah-mia-mcpherson-3862.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/great-blue-herons-rookery-utah-mia-mcpherson-3862.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":109125,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/12\/30\/great-blue-heron-on-ice-at-farmington-bay-wma\/","url_meta":{"origin":115878,"position":5},"title":"Great Blue Heron On Ice At Farmington Bay WMA","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I had some fun photographing a Great Blue Heron on ice along with its shadow yesterday morning on a pond at Farmington Bay WMA.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Birds&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Yawning Great Blue Heron on ice, Farmington Bay WMA, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/great-blue-heron-and-shadow-on-ice-mia-mcpherson-6888.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/great-blue-heron-and-shadow-on-ice-mia-mcpherson-6888.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/great-blue-heron-and-shadow-on-ice-mia-mcpherson-6888.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/great-blue-heron-and-shadow-on-ice-mia-mcpherson-6888.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\/115878","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=115878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}