all creatures great and small
Early morning portrait
It had been two weeks since I was last here at Clove Lakes to get my first look at this years batch of chicks from our now famous pair of great blue herons. The pair nesting in the same tree, for by all accounts, at least the last 4 or 5 years, have attracted all kinds of attention from locals, news people, and professional photographers. I feel especially blessed to live so close to the lake that I can come whenever I have a free day off to check up on them.
My last trip here I noticed a pair of great egrets had been chased off of Martling lake (which is the second of the three lakes here at Clove lake park) by the female heron, and is where her nest is located, and forced the egrets to hunt for food on the first lake, from which the Park gets it's name.
And today as I entered the park as usual from Clove Road and headed towards the heron's nest I spotted this great white egret no doubt hunting here at Clove lake, the first lake instead of Martling lake, where it surely would have stirred the ire of our pair of herons.
As usually I find more people fishing on Martling lake compared to Clove lake, I can safely assume that the hunting decidedly better there on the second lake than the first. And undoubtedly the herons found that to be the case too, and are in no mood to share their good fortune with any direct rival looking to raise their own brood of chicks. And thus why the female vigorously chased them off the last time.
So much so that even though her mate had left the nest to hunt, she took off after the egret leaving the chicks unattended, though she probably wouldn't have gone completely out of sight of the nest like that if the chicks hadn't had grown so big by then.
Probably not in the mood to get hassled by our nesting pair this beautiful great white, stalked around here where it could hunt undisturbed. Which was good for me too, as in the early morning lighting it made for a very nice photo opportunity.
springStaten IslandClove LakesGreat white egretbirdsnatureegretsNYC
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