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Great Blue Heron Roosting in Japan





My friend Phil shared these pictures of a Great Blue Heron roosting in Japan. According to him- there are lots of them roosting in the trees near where he lives and they make a lot of noise and are pretty annoying. I decided to see if I could get more information about Great Blue Herons in Japan, and found this great blog from Jeffrey Friedl with pictures of an urban Great Blue Heron, who is essentially domesticated by the people who live on that block since they feed him platefuls of fish. Definitely check it out because his pictures are fantastic and the story is interesting: http://regex.info/blog/2007-05-23/466.

Comments

Unknown said…
If you have a chance to get to Appleton Farms and Grass Rides in Ipswich soon by all means go.

Neotropical migration is in at peak and the place is jumping.

I just finished a piece on it.
http://baystatements.blogspot.com/2012/05/bay-circuit-trail-ipswich-to-hamilton.html
Fly or Die Dan said…
If this was taken in Japan its most likely a GRAY Heron. Gray is the Asian analog of our Great Blue. There are subtle plumage differences.
Cathleen Voss said…
@Dan- thank you for the clarification. I had trouble finding good information online, so thank you for helping me with the ID. I'll update the post with this new information.

@Chris- thank you for the tip! Now that spring migration is over, maybe I'll try and catch some of fall there.

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