Dancing Heron

by Len Bomba

Title

Dancing Heron

Artist

Len Bomba

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

Submitted for contest: BIRD WING-DRYING PHOTOGRAPHS

Back in 2009 when I was still working, I would pass by a small roadside pond in Bow, NH on my way to and from work and on a few occasions, I would see a heron standing either on the shoreline or on a rock in the water that is about 15' from shore. On this day I was on my way home from work when I spotted this fellow doing some sort of dance on the rock. I quickly turned around, parked my car and quietly walked to the edge of the pond to capture this odd behavior. Typically, when I've tried to get close to a heron, they would fly away. This guy was obviously engulfed in his performance and didn't seem to be at all bothered by my presence.

At the time, I wasn't sure what the heron was doing but it had been quite hot and humid here in the Northeast with temps in the mid 90's with high humidity. So, I had a theory. This pond is right alongside a very busy roadway with cars and truck speeding by non-stop all day long. My theory was that this smart fellow has figured out that if he positioned his wings just so, they would catch the non-stop breezes of the passing vehicles and help to keep him cool. As I was taking this and other shots of him, I did notice that he was panting as well which sort of backed up my theory. In hindsight, I realized that had likely been fishing in the pond and was probably just drying off in the sun.

Photographed Aug. 17, 2009
Olympus SP-560UZ camera
P817000B

Uploaded

December 27th, 2023

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