A
Little Blue Heron was reported at
Minidioka Wildlife Refuge, which is near Burley, Idaho a few days ago. Little Blue Herons are mostly a gulf coast / east coast water bird that inhabits mainly slow moving swamps and marshes. This was only the second record for Idaho, so I was pretty interested in seeing it. It has been seen regularly the last two evenings flying up the Snake River below Minidoka Dam, so I decided to drive down after work yesterday to see if I could relocate it. It had been a while since I had been birding, and I wanted to explore the area as a possible place to photograph the river.
At 7:30 I saw a small dark heron flying up the river. It got closer and I could tell it was the Little Blue. I called my friend Steve, who had just arrived up-river and told him to be on the lookout. It flew past me, Steve saw it and we both watched it fly over the dam. We didn't get great looks, but it was still a pretty cool sight.
Afterwards I made a few photographs of the river in the fading light. It really is a neat place and I'll have to head back and spend more time photographing.
Snake River Below Minidoka Dam, Minidoka, ID 2007
