Great Blue Heron in flight
Ardea herodias
Great Blue Heron · Constitution Marsh · 17 October 2026
A Great Blue Heron crossing Constitution Marsh against the autumn colour of the Hudson Highlands, the steep wooded hills either side of the river here. Most Great Blues leave the Northeast for the winter, but a good few stay on wherever there is open water, and a tidal marsh, flushed twice a day, is slow to freeze.
The neck folded back into an S and the legs trailing straight out behind are how a heron flies, and the quickest way to tell one from a crane at a distance, which flies with its neck held straight out. For all its size, a Great Blue weighs only around two kilos, most of it feather and hollow bone.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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