Subject: [Tweeters] Melanistic Great Blue Heron?
Date: Jan 30 08:06:46 2008
From: Jack Stephens - jstephens62 at comcast.net


Tweets,

A friend of mine is a nature photographer and casual birder. She has sent me a photo of bird that caught her eye as unusual near her home on Camano Island. It is taken at some distance, but is clearly a Great Blue Heron, but very, very dark in the underparts, almost black. The head and neck seem normally colored.
I thought at first it might be a shadow overlying the bird, but it is perched in a tree with bright light on all the branches around it. I am lead to the conclusion that it is a melanistic GBHE. After years in the field and all the herons I have seen, I have never seen one with this coloration. A quick internet search shows a single report from the 30's of a Black-crowned Night-Heron that was so dark it was initially thought to be a cormorant, but no other mention of melanistic herons.
I have a photo that I can e-mail to anyone interested, I don't have a web site to post it.
I would appreciate feedback from anyone with information or experince with dark herons.

Thanks!

Jack Stephens
jstephens62 at comcast.net
Edmonds, WA