Great Blue Heron

Well, it's that time of year again, time to renew the web hosting. And for those of you that don't know, that has become a lot more expensive than it used to be. Fifty dollars a year is now several hundred. Not to mention the price of domain names has gone up ten-fold.

And I just found out that the nice folks at PayPal disabled all my Support buttons, and I never got a notice (although that may be my fault.) In any case, it is all working again now, so if you would like to make a small donation to help defray these costs, it would be greatly appreciated.

Great Blue Heron

Ardea herodius

Size: 42-52"

Habitat: in and around water

Notes:
These large and majestic birds may be seen wading in the shallows, hunting fish and frogs. They are not as uncommon as you might think but watch from a distance as they do not like to be approached.



Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron

Similar but smaller all-white egrets are actually quite common. Night Herons, smaller and usually dark green or brown, prowl around boat docks and tidal flats in the dark.

White Egret
White Egret
Night Heron
Night Heron ( the neck is long, but this is normally not evident. )

Basking Shark

Cetorhinus maximus

Size:
to 45 ft

Habitat:
open ocean

Notes:
harmless

The Basking Shark is second in size only to the Whale Shark, and much more likely to be spotted in our cool northern waters. Like the Whale Shark, the Basking Shark is a harmless plankton feeder. While the Whale Shark has a brown and cream checkerboard pattern on its back, the Basking Shark is more uniformly gray, making identification easy. It also differs in profile: while the Whale Shark has a broad square snout, the Basking Shark has a pointed conical snout, much like its cousin the Great White, for which it may be mistaken.

Printed from njscuba.net