Summer Beach Days!
A great blue heron is flying over ocean water. Its wings are outstretched, it’s legs extended behind it, and its reflection is visible in the calm ocean water below it.
It’s summer here in Victoria and I’m really appreciating the warm days. I’ve gotten out to beaches recently, as nice, wide open outdoor places to go where we can avoid close contact with other people. Fortunately they haven’t been crowded and I’m grateful yet again that Victoria has so many options for getting outside.
Great blue herons are spectacular and seem so dinosaur-like to me, so it’s super fun to see them congregating in groups and fishing in tide pools. I don’t have the kind of lens you really need for proper bird photography, but I was really excited that I captured a few shots of them anyway.
A whole bunch of great blue herons gathering in a tide pool, looking like dinosaurs, standing around, and stretching their wings.
Profile of a great blue heron standing in a tide pool with one leg lifted as it takes a step forward.
Low tide is a great time to get little glimpses of sea creatures too. I can’t get over how cool sea stars are. This one is an ochre star, which is a pretty common sea star around here.
Closeup of a purple ochre sea star arm with some of its tube feet stuck to a rock and stretching out.
The most amazing thing I’ve seen recently was this nudibranch. This is a real creature that lives on Earth!
A transparent nudibranch with orange bits visible on the inside and white edges along that look like they’re outlining it.
Closer view of the nudibranch with feathered rhinophores that look like antennae sticking out of the front.
Top view of the nudibranch. It’s transparent so you can see orange innards inside it.
I also love anemones for being so aggressively weird. My designer self can’t help but feel like this one was coordinating with this show-off crab.
A deep red anemone with lots of white tentacles waving around coming from the centre.
A big red-orange crab viewed from above.
I’m gonna just finish off this post with a couple more heron photos because I’m going to admit I spent a lot of my beach time focused on them.
A great blue heron with wings extended is flying in front of lush green trees.
A great blue heron flying. Its wings are on the downstroke. It’s flying about the ocean with the sky and mountains in the background.
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