Blue looking heron

old soldier · #1 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 08:20 PM

Shot this in a field nowhere near water this afternoon. Looks like a heron to me, but why the blue? Is it young colour or something.

thanks for looking

RobS · #2 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 09:26 PM

Photoshop?

old soldier · #3 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 09:37 PM

Nope bit of sharpening thats all

old soldier · #4 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 09:41 PM

Another shot in slightly differnet light

thunder · #5 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 09:44 PM

Possibly it had just powdered itself - I have read that Bitterns can look blue just after they have powdered themselves - if they can then surely Herons can.

henrya

Hedera · #6 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 09:53 PM

Nice bird. Makes a change from pink cats!

old soldier · #7 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 09:59 PM

Get the feeling you think i have manipulated this image with the reference to pink cats, its more or less straight out of the camera, shot in RAW and converted to JPEG, then resized!

Hedera · #8 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 10:03 PM

Oh no! Referred to the one in the paper that its owner had dyed pink! Your heron is bona fide I'm sure.

RKB · #9 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 10:29 PM

This is a colour mutation, referred to as cyanistic (as in the more common leucistic or melanistic). It means they have an excess of blue colouring. It's quite rare.

Naturenutz · #10 (**permalink**) 30-09-2010, 10:30 PM

For some reason from the raw photo,it has been resized very small and its hard to get a good look as you can from a large photo.This may be why there is a lack of replies .Can you enlarge the photo so we can get a better look.