Strut Your Stuff

Great Blue Heron, Blue Mash Nature Trail, Gaithersburg, MD

As a birding newbie & very beginner bird photographer, great blue heron (GBH) are a lot of fun to watch and photograph. They are large, easy to find, exotic looking, and can put on quite a good show!

Some rules have been broken here… If you want to be a good bird photographer, you don’t really want to take a bunch of pictures of the back of a bird. But in this case, I wanted to show you this GBH strutting his stuff, showing off his great size and plumage. I think he wanted everyone to notice him and take lots of photos of his awesomeness and that’s exactly what I did!

He just went on, and on, and on, strutting around and showing off. Do you know any humans like this GBH? Ever seen someone who loves to show off, craves attention and glory? It somehow seems more acceptable for a wild bird to be an attention hog than it is for a person. It takes all the different personalities to make the world interesting, though, doesn’t it? Next time I see a person flapping their “wings,” working hard to get everybody’s attention, wanting all the glory for themself, I will resist annoyance, step back and try to enjoy the show.