We went to Hood River today to look for Black-crowned Night-Heron and we were not disappointed.  Besides having to turn around and go back to the house when Jill realized she was still wearing her slippers : -)  it was a near perfect day. The skies were clear and winds were calm.  After picking up our target species on the spit at the mouth of Hood river, we had brunch at the Riverside Restaurant.  We were pleasantly surprised by the quality and price of the food.

BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON:

The Black-crowned Night-Heron typically roosts in colonies hidden in trees during the day.  They forage at night and therefore it is unusual to find this species in flight during the day; unless of course you make a mistake like the one I made during this outing and get too close to a roost-tree.  In which case a resting bird will become uncomfortable enough to leave its perch (or flush), a situation that should be avoided whenever possible.  In my defense, this particular bird was out of sight a few yards below the service road that sits on top of the spit and it flushed as I stepped to the edge of the road in an effort to get a better look at what I thought was a possible roost-tree down stream. If you look at the first image below the map, you will see how close Jill came to a roosting pair after simply getting out of the car.  She was both surprised and at the same time able to get that picture before calling me over to help, which resulted in my being able to get the two images that precede the map without flushing either bird.  The spit and surrounding waters is very popular with fisherman, dog-walkers, beachcombers, windsurfer's in-training, and kayakers. Jill believes the opening and closing of car doors was the principal reason these birds took flight during our visit. So while I am not innocent of the charge of being an overzealous photographer from time-to-time, I would like you to know that Jill and I are both appreciative of your concerns that we interacted with these birds in order to get a picture of them in flight.

The green arrow is placed at the end of the spit, a known roosting area for Black-crowned Night-Heron.  

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Below are a few additional pictures we'd like to also share. The first of the series is my favorite. As I was off looking for the Black-crowned Night-Heron along another section of the spit; Jill took just a couple of short steps outside the car before finding and photographing the heron pictured below - she was determined to make sure we came away from this visit to Hood River with an image of our target species. The perspective in her picture is representative of what you would you experience with the naked eye rather than looking through binoculars or a camera with a long lens.

The Heron shown above were found below the fir tree pictured on the right side of the image below.

Brewer's Blackbird

Say's Phoebe - on an unfortunate perch

Lastly, a couple of shots from the panoramic overlook off Hwy 35 - images we hope to improve on this spring.