Great Blue Heron Picture Gallery

The Great Blue Heron may be the royalty of the bird kingdom. At over four feet in height and draped in spectacular plumage during the mating season, these royal birds strike stately poses. Its eating habits are pedestrian, though, and includes snakes, mice, frogs and insects as well as fish. The great blue heron, frequently seen in the backwater bays, pond and lake areas is an alert and somewhat shy creature which will fly quickly when it senses an intruder. 

The Canon EOS Digital Rebel single lens reflex (dSLR) camera was employed for most of the bird photos below. It was equipped with a  Sigma zoom lens 200-500 mm, sometimes with a 1.4 tele-extender. All photos on the page are downsized and compressed for loading speed. The high resolution 6.3 megapixel images are archived offline.

A click on each picture brings up a larger image. Use your BACK button to return to this page.

Coloring of the Great Blue Heron seems to run from a deep to light blue in the Everglades National Park (picture upper, left and center) to bluish-gray and gray at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel Island (upper, right) to reddish gray and tan during winter breeding at Venice Rookery (lower right).
Great Blue at Ding Darling NWR	Great Blue at Venice rookery	Great Blue pose - wings upturned
Great Blue Heron mothers and chicks
At dawn, this chick squawks at mama; then gives her a big heron hug!
Great Blue Heron portrait	Great Blue Heron in flight	Vigilant at the nest
Great Blue-Heron mom and adolescent just ready to leave the nest.
Fluffed chick.	Mom, dad and chicks	Please mom, I need it...