One of the nice things about summer birding is that so many young birds, who haven’t yet learned to fear humans, are around. This allows for relatively easy observation of behaviors since the birds are comfortable going about their normal behavior as if we aren’t there. A great example of this was this recently fledged Green Heron at Brazos Bend State Park. We watched this bird and two of its siblings as they developed their hunting skills; leading to some comical situations. The birds were hunting in a small pool of water that was drying up making catching fish easy. This fish was a bit too big for the young heron to handle. I clicked away for at least five minutes while the inexperienced bird struggled to swallow its prize. Eventually the fish was abandoned.

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Butorides virescens