Little Blue Heron in flight

Egretta caerulea

Little Blue Heron · Everglades National Park · 6 February 2026

A Little Blue Heron in flight over the Everglades in February, neck folded back into an S and legs trailing. It is a heron of the freshwater marshes and coastal shallows of the American South, and it moves between feeding ponds through the day on exactly this slow, deep wingbeat.

Herons fly with the neck folded rather than extended, unlike a crane or a stork, a distinction usually more useful for identifying a distant silhouette than any plumage detail is. A Little Blue Heron flaps about twice a second, which is slow enough to count.