{"id":32792,"date":"2022-10-04T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=32792"},"modified":"2022-09-30T00:23:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T04:23:18","slug":"visibly-different-part-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2022\/10\/visibly-different-part-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Visibly different, part 40"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"juvenile
Our opening image this week once again comes from Florida, but I’m not exactly sure where in Florida – Atlantic coast, definitely, but I just can’t remember where I took it. Given the appearance of the rocks, this may well have been right where I frequently snorkeled, though the obscure, defocused foliage at the edges tells me I was shooting through a gap and there weren’t a lot of screening plants near that area. And yet, the subject indicates that I probably would have tried to use whatever cover I could, since this is an immature night heron, probably the first I’d photographed, and I wouldn’t have wanted to spook it off.<\/p>\n

‘Night heron’ is a little vague, though – there are two night heron species in the region:<\/strong> the yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea<\/em>) and the black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax<\/em>.) The juveniles of both species are nearly identical, differentiated largely by the color of their bill – the yellow-crowned has a “mostly dark” bill<\/a> while the black-crowned has a “yellowish” bill<\/a>. Though if you look at the images at those links, you’ll find that their photos aren’t as clearly-defined as their descriptions – they’re not that visibly different at all. But given this, I’ll tentatively identify the image above as a black-crowned. The first scan that I have was created in 2004, which is right in line with my tenure in Florida. Now we jump ahead sixteen years to 2020.<\/p>\n

\"juvenile
This was at the neighborhood pond, and while this is a cropped image (I’m recycling it from a post back then,) it’s only cropped to a vertical – it’s using the full height of the original frame. Obviously, both closer now and using a longer lens;<\/strong> I’m not sure what was used for the first image, but knowing my habits, it was either the old Olympus kit with the 75-260mm zoom, or the Canon with the lightweight 75-300mm, because I typically biked to the snorkeling area with the camera stuff in a waistpack. The bulky and heavy Sigma 170-500mm was carried during dedicated photo trips and not on the bike. But the latter photo was definitely with the Tamron 150-600mm and I was ridiculously close, because the bird was being remarkably mellow. Given that bill color, I identified this as a yellow-crowned instead. The neck lends a little support to this:<\/strong> yellow-crowned have longer necks, but all of the herons can make them appear much shorter, so this is not a reliable metric.<\/p>\n

It’s much easier when they’re adults.<\/p>\n

\"black-crowned
Black-crowned above, yellow-crowned below.<\/p>\n

\"yellow-crowned
Even from a great distance, those heads can be differentiated, so the key for distinguishing the juveniles is, wait around until their adult plumage comes in. Subscribe for more handy tips.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the primary difference between the success of the two initial photos? Nothing deep or poignant, just the opportunity presenting itself. And carrying the camera as frequently as possible – that bit can only help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our opening image this week once again comes from Florida, but I’m not exactly sure where in Florida – Atlantic coast, definitely, but I just can’t remember where I took it. Given the appearance of the rocks, this may well have been right where I frequently snorkeled, though the obscure, defocused foliage at the edges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[71,6915,4162,4878,70],"class_list":["post-32792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-black-crowned-night-heron","tag-juvenile-plumage","tag-nyctanassa-violacea","tag-nycticorax-nycticorax","tag-yellow-crowned-night-heron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}