Another Beautiful Iowa Bird

The great blue heron.  Is this not a lovely bird?  My husband took the photo while on a kayak on the Des Moines River.  He was waiting for the heron to take flight, but it ignored him completely and instead he got a nice close-up photo.  Before the river took him out of range.  My husband, not the heron.  If the bird had taken off, following would not have been an option as they can do 30 miles per hour.  According to the Iowa DNR, "An adult great blue heron is 42 to 52 inches long. ... It has a low call of “frahnk,frawnk, frawnk"."  I'm guessing that is not a thing of beauty.  For more on Iowa birds, take a look at our books!
Iowa Bird Books
Some of these books will have the word 'Iowa' under 'Collection'. These cannot be checked out but you can use them in-house. There are still lots of books that check out!

Photo Courtesy Gerry Rowland