{"id":42654,"date":"2016-10-15T06:15:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T12:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=42654"},"modified":"2025-08-19T12:39:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T17:39:22","slug":"great-blue-heron-resting-in-a-canada-goose-nest-at-farmington-bay-wma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2016\/10\/15\/great-blue-heron-resting-in-a-canada-goose-nest-at-farmington-bay-wma\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Blue Heron Resting In A Canada Goose Nest At Farmington Bay WMA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GreatGreat Blue Heron resting in a Canada Goose nest – Nikon D500, f9, 1\/1000, ISO 320, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Great Blue Herons are year round residents in northern Utah, they survive our harsh, bitter cold winters, breed in the spring, raise their young in the heat of summer and on fall mornings they can be found looking marvelous against the autumn colors of the marshes as the sun warms them up.<\/p>\n

Farmington Bay<\/span><\/a> has a few human made goose nests in some of the ponds and this one is the closest and easiest to photograph and even though it is human made I like how rusty it is and the graphic lines of the nest.<\/p>\n

I have photographed Belted Kingfishers, Forster’s Terns, Canada Geese and Great Blue Herons on this nest. When I’ve photographed Canada Geese on it they were using it as a nest while the kingfishers and terns were using it as a perch to find prey in the pond.<\/p>\n

Every time I have photographed a Great Blue Heron in the goose nest they were using it as a place to rest. 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.<\/p>\n

How could I pass the heron and those colors up? More importantly, why would I want to?<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

Click 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":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1022,697,166,26],"tags":[4004,4117,5477,9082,3987,627,626,4094,4075,4156,313,4095],"class_list":["post-42654","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-autumn-colors","tag-goose-nest","tag-great-blue-heron","tag-heron","tag-herons","tag-marsh","tag-nest","tag-resting","tag-wading-birds","tag-wetlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/great-blue-heron-nest-mia-mcpherson-7185.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-b5Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":76421,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/12\/22\/great-blue-heron-resting-on-a-goose-nest\/","url_meta":{"origin":42654,"position":0},"title":"Great 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