Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 09:27:26 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Ray Wilson Subject: zoo night heron drama MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I went down to the National Zoo yesterday evening to photograph the nesting activity of the Black-crowned Night Herons. While I was there a flock of American Crows started making a huge commotion in response to a Racoon climbing a tree. Over the next 30 minutes the Racoon caused havoc among the Night Herons as it climbed from nest to nest feasting on any eggs it could find, while the adults made valiant attempts to scare the intruder away but were on the whole totally ignored. After robbing 4 nests of their eggs the racoon curled up in one of the nests and appeared to go to sleep while the parents of the nest it had just robbed continued to squawk, hiss and try to peck their unwanted guest, but they perch they were on was a little too far away for them to be able to strike with their bills and all they ever managed to do was occasionally ruffle the Racoon's fur with their wing tips. Unfortunately, all this action was taking place at the back of the tallest tree in the rookery and it was impossible to get a clear photo without lots of twigs in the way. That's one problem with photography. Even when you see such interesting spectacles you are rarely completely satisfied because the action usually plays out in a spot that is not photogenic! After watching their fruitless attempts to usurp the sleeping racoon for a further 20 minutes I had to leave, when a cop came round and chased me off the premises because the zoo had closed 45 minutes ago. Oops! Ray Wilson Riverdale, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================