Love them little froggies...

Them froggies I love to eat...
Bite they tiny legs off...
Chew they tiny feet...

Forgive me a bit of literary license with a rather disturbing little rhyme which was actually written about birds from the viewpoint of a cat. It's always made me laugh and it seemed to fit today's blip rather well. If you look LARGE you will see that this beautiful Green Heron has just grabbed a small frog from the water. A moment later, the frog was history. While I stood on the trail watching, the heron manged to catch 2 more, gobbling them down without so much as an "excuse me".

I felt enough better today to venture out on a hike, toting the D600 and Big Daddy along with me. This green heron was the highlight for me as I didn't know they were still here this late (they migrate in the fall, heading towards Sefferdog), and I've never been able to get anywhere close enough to one to get any decent photos. I hung out and watched it for about 30 minutes...until a jogger came along and spooked it!

I also saw a comma butterfly (either Eastern or Gray, not sure), a Great Egret, several unidentified shorebirds, a dead vole (bummer), loads of autumn meadowhawks and one very large cruiser (dragon) of some sort. Then, when I returned home, an Eastern Phoebe landed in the cherry tree! So, all in all, a good day.

Four other shots on Flickr, starting HERE

What I didn't see today was a hummer. So, I wonder if my little gal took off this morning? If so, I hope she has a strong tailwind and lots of nectar along the way. And thank you for sending her to the Spotlight yesterday! The comments, hearts, and stars were all deeply appreciated - just the fact that you seem to never tire of my obsession with hummingbirds makes me very grateful!

Happy Hump Day!

ciao,
Debbi

Technical stuff: Handheld using Tamron 200-500 lens fully zoomed. Image has been cropped.