Juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron over Frank Lake

After a day that started with snowfall, the clouds cleared in the evening.  Desiree and I headed south to Frank Lake to see what birds were staging around the shoreline.  With the unusual dip in temperature, I was unsure which birds may have jumpstarted their migrations and which would still be there.  We were treated to a large squadron of white pelicans which were the main focus of our bird watching and photography.  The sun fell under the clouds an hour before dusk and the light was incredible right through to sunset.  Aside from the pelicans, we had several species of seagulls, great blue herons, cormorants, hawks, coots, ducks and shorebirds that came by.  And, a number of Black-crowned Night-Herons too. Surprisingly to me, most of those were juveniles.  Which Desiree was able to identify as Night-Herons.  Which was great as I thought they were an egret or another type of heron.  The young look very different from the adults in this species of heron!  This photo caught the heron flying into the warm sunlight and I was lucky to have it catch the eye.