not the blue heron or maybe...

got in my boat yesterday, rowed to a "corner" of the lake a couple hundred feet from shore, anchored down, and began to relax, eating popcorn and drinking lemonade. While glancing at the shoreline, I noticed the bobbing head of what I thought was one of our Great Blue Herons. It was walking, stealth like, on the shoreline. It came out and stood on a large rock (the one on the right pictured below) and I couldn't get my camera out fast enough before it had moved back into the wooded area of shore and continued on. Dang it! That would have been a cool shot.

Periodically I would see the dude a little farther and farther up the shoreline. When I was done relaxing and was ready to head back in, I decided to row up the shoreline some and see if I could drift along quietly and perhaps get another chance at taking a picture. I did find the bird again, but he/she did not make getting a picture easy. When I was near, it partially hid behind a pine tree (with its rump sticking out), was close enough I could practically sneeze on the bird, but was hidden behind dead tree limbs, and did come into a clearing occasionally, but only when I was farther away and unable to get a good picture.

This pursuit continued for a half hour or so and then I got an incredibly, lucky break. While going after stuff to eat (I presume), something spooked the big bird (perhaps one of our water snakes?), it let out a squawk, jumped back, and flew out into the lake straight at me (now that would have been a cool picture). When the bird saw me, he made a hard right and landed on the nearest driftwood. Apparently my presence at that point wasn't nearly as spooky as the bird's most recent encounter and I was able to get the following pictures:

And my favorite:

I still haven't figured out which bird exactly this is other than to be fairly certain it is a heron. Blue Heron's are suppose to have dark legs. But whatever the dude is, he/she sure was fun to watch.