New England Blogs

Monday, June 10, 2019

Great Blue Heron Rookery Wrentham MA

One day last week I went to Wrentham MA to photograph the nesting Great Blue Herons at Wollomonopoag Reserve. It was a beautiful day for the 3/4 mile hike on the trail that leads you out to open water where there are approximately 30 nests. Not all nests were occupied, but most were.

Here is what we call in Boston, a "double decker" (pronounced as a double decka of course) :-)


The parents fly in and out of the nests in search for food. They have pockets in their throat where they store food for the babies and regurgitate it in the nest to feed their young.



"Daddy's Home"......notice the size of the chicks in this shot. They were smaller than most of the other chicks we saw in the nests. This family must have started a bit later than most of the others.


A different nest with larger chicks waiting for food after Dad came home:


A feeding:


Was an incredible experience to witness this. If you decide to go, you will want to bring bug spray. The mosquitos were ferocious. We sprayed ourselves when we got out of the car but I was wishing I brought the spray with me as well.








3 comments:

  1. Carol, These photos are incredible!!!

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  2. I’m back with a question. How long a lens did you use to capture these images?
    What a gift to be able to see this heron rookery; I didn’t even know that there were places such as this.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Janice. I'm sorry for not replying sooner. I just saw this message now. I used the Tamron 150-600 mm lens on a DX body for these.....and they were probably all taken around the 600 mm range. I'm glad you enjoyed them!

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