Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 27, 2010. Great Blue Heron over Corralitas Dive at 2:42PM. (Clicking on photo won't make it better.) This afternoon, a Corralitas Drive neighbor emailed me an unusual bird sighting. "I'm no ornithologist but last night approx 7PM, a very large bird flew into the highest point of my cypress tree - and it never came out. It was not the hawk you spoke of but rather some kind of long beaked very wide winged span species. I searched the internet for clues...And I believe I found it." The neighbor included a link to a Wood Stork.
While I wouldn't be surprised if it was a stork, I had not heard of a population of storks on our part of the LA River. I thought it was more likely a Great Blue Heron. I sent the neighbor a few photos from my archives (including the one below). The neighbor immediately identified the bird as a Great Blue Heron.
As if to prove my point, I happened to be walking up the hill an hour later, when a Great Blue Heron flew from the LA River toward Silver Lake Reservoir, directly over Corralitas (photo above). The very large birds tend to nest on the reservoir and hunt on the banks of the river. Since about 2005, Blue Heron flyovers have become commonplace, but no less impressive.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, December 24, 2009. Great Blue Heron on LA River north of Los Feliz. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
