{"id":148091,"date":"2025-06-11T04:41:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=148091"},"modified":"2025-06-11T04:55:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:55:56","slug":"yellow-crowned-night-heron-and-crawdads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2025\/06\/11\/yellow-crowned-night-heron-and-crawdads\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellow-crowned Night Heron And Crawdads"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was thrilled to spot a Yellow-crowned Night Heron yesterday morning at Sequoyah NWR, and even more thrilled to photograph the night heron with a crawdad.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow-crownedYellow-crowned Night Heron eating a crawdad \u2013 Canon R7, handheld, f7.1, 1\/250, ISO 1600, Canon EF 100-400mm II at 255mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen these night herons at the refuge infrequently, but never this close and never eating a crawdad. And it wasn\u2019t just one. The heron caught and ate more than one crayfish.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the second time I photographed this wading bird with a crawdad yesterday morning, it moved out toward the gravel road at the Lower Scarborough Slough. That meant I had a nice background in this photo.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve photographed this wading bird species with crustaceans before in Florida, mainly Ghost and Fiddler Crabs<\/span><\/a> along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow-crownedYellow-crowned Night Heron close up at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge \u2013 Canon R7, handheld, f7.1, 1\/250, ISO 1600, Canon EF 100-400mm II at 400mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

After the Yellow-crowned Night Heron<\/span><\/a> ate the crawdad I walked a little closer, zoomed in, and took a few portraits of the heron. As infrequently as I see and photograph this species of heron, I wanted to take as many images of this one as I could.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my understanding that these herons used to be seen in larger numbers and more frequently at the refuge before the flooding event in 2019.<\/p>\n

\"CrawdadCrawdad on the road \u2013 Canon R7, handheld, f9, 1\/200, ISO 1600, +0.3 EV, Canon EF 100-400mm II at 400mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Later yesterday morning on the road to the Sandtown Bottoms area of the refuge, I found a crawdad in the road and jumped out to photograph it. I took images of another crayfish in that same area in 2023<\/span><\/a> with my dear friend Steve Creek and had great fun. Steve and I had fun with this crawdad<\/span><\/a> yesterday too!<\/p>\n

And then, the reason for our stop was to move the crawdad off the road so it wouldn\u2019t get squished. We do that for turtles and<\/em> crawdads!<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/span> to see more of my Yellow-crowned Night Heron photos plus facts and information about this species. Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Crayfish photos plus facts and information about them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was thrilled to spot a Yellow-crowned Night Heron yesterday morning at Sequoyah NWR, and even more thrilled to photograph the night heron with a crawdad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":148082,"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":[14251,13973,13974,93],"tags":[4004,13984,4142,2545,16510,6292,2544,16512,4286,627,626,14912,5593,3956,3957,4000,4046,2326,16511,13976,165,313,95],"class_list":["post-148091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crawdads","category-oklahoma","category-sequoyah-national-wildlife-refuge","category-yellow-crowned-night-heron","tag-adult","tag-bottomlands","tag-close-up","tag-crawdad","tag-crawdad-astacidae","tag-crawdads","tag-crayfish","tag-crustacean","tag-eating","tag-heron","tag-herons","tag-lower-scarborough-slough","tag-mudbug","tag-night-heron","tag-night-herons","tag-nyctanassa-violacea","tag-portrait","tag-road","tag-sand-bottoms","tag-slough","tag-spring","tag-wading-birds","tag-yellow-crowned-night-heron"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t