Yellow Crowned Night Heron....in Love

I ran across a Yellow Crowned Night Heron yesterday at the arboretum.

"The Yellow Crested Night Heron is a very rare and elusive bird. To find this bird, like any bird, it is necessary to understand what its life is like.

When and where it will be is predictable, but sometimes it is just luck. The sun going down and coming up sets a timetable of activity. High tide and low tide can provide for many a time to eat or a time to build nests.

The Yellow Crested Night Heron is a difficult bird to see. It is called a Night Heron because of its nocturnal habits. It likes cool sleeping spots and nesting over still water. It seems to pick dark shade deep in the woods or caves at the edges of lagoons or in a gallery of trees that stand in water."

The park worker said that this particular one had shown up in the early morning and had been there at the pond all day; unusual behavior for a nocturnal bird.

We'll call him Romeo. Romeo fell hard for a pretty little thing we'll call Juliet. Juliet is lovely, attractive, and graceful, and unfortunately for Romeo, made entirely of plastic.

Despite his sexy suave bird moves, he is unable to get Juliet's attention and pines for her. Predictably, she continued to play hard to get:



He strutted left and right, showed off his wings, did a thing with his beak (see video) and tried so hard to impress her...it was a little sad, actually, knowing he was going to get shot down again and again. Hopefully if he remains there, they will remove the plastic bird - at least until he moves on to a lady friend who will appreciate his charms.