White-faced Herons

Adult White-faced Heron fishing for dinner

It was a delight to be able to observe a white-faced heron family interacting with each other at the inlet yesterday evening. Two juvenile birds were constantly being chased by an adult. I don't know if they were from the same family but I choose to believe so. The two young ones were fighting over a log to stand on, and in the end neither of them got to keep it as the adult bird chased them both off.

Juvenile White-faced Heron

I was actually waiting for the Kingfishers to arrive, I managed to get to the inlet before the tide had gone out too far and was curious to see at what point they showed up. I had changed up my camera settings in an effort to reduce noise and improve the background in the images. The herons kept me fully entertained until the kingfisher arrived.

Juvenile White-faced Heron

Actually it was rather interesting, the herons hung around the kingfisher's log until the water receded beyond the log, and it was at that point that they flew off and the kingfisher flew in. I didn't see them both there at the same time throughout the entire evening. The herons kept their distance only moving in closer once the kingfisher had flown off.  They were both fishing for crabs, so were competing for the food.

Juvenile with crab

I wonder if the herons are interested in cleaning up the pile of crab legs that the kingfishers leave under their logs. As the tide went further out, the kingfishers were more active.  I managed a few shots of them, but they can be another post, this one is for the herons.

Adult strutting in to sort out the youngsters

Adult taking control of the log.