black-crowned night heron ~ 01/08/12 ~ Coast Guard Pier

black-crowned night heron
Nycticorax nycticorax

For quite a while I've wanted to capture a picture of an adult black-crowned night heron during daylight hours. I've seen them regularly near the Coast Guard Pier, adults and juveniles, but I've never had a camera on me when I spot them. It's been almost 3 years ago since we often found a black-crowned night heron while grunion greeting in the middle of the night. We named him "Charlie" and knew if we saw him on the beach, we would have good luck finding grunion. The above picture is an unusual angle, because I was leaning over the railing of recently built restrooms at the boat docks. The actual Coast Guard Pier is once again closed this winter due to additional pier maintenance. They claim it'll be open to the public come February, but I suspect it won't open again until at least June.