William H. Wiley
402-875-1809
bill@wmwiley.com
1221 Rockhurst Dr.
Lincoln, NE 68510
The Great White Heron builds tree nests in colonies called rookeries. Always close to water, heron nests are typically built a few feet above the high tide mark and are made of heavy twigs and small branches. The Great White Heron’s diet consists primarily consists of fish, amphibians and crustaceans and they catch their prey by stalking and silently waiting before swiftly striking with their long beaks. Their spectacular plumage nearly caused their extinction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when hat makers used their pure white feathers in fashionable ladies’ hats.
Perched on a single leg, a Great Blue Heron surveys its surroundings in Louisiana bayou. Great Blue Herons typically live in and around salt and fresh-water environments, have wingspans up to six feet and fly approximately 25 mph.
The red-bellied woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker common in many Eastern woodlands and forests, preferring old stands of oak and hickory trees to young hardwoods and pines. Its common name is somewhat misleading, as the most prominent red part of its plumage is on the head; the red-headed woodpecker, however, is another species that is a close relative but looks quite different. The red-bellied woodpecker uses its bill as a chisel for foraging, drilling into bark or probing cracks on trunk of trees, pulling out beetles and other insects with the help of its long tongue.
