Night Heron

Night Heron, originally uploaded by Megan Lorenz.

Black-Crowned Night Heron
Venice Rookery, Florida
Nature's Photo Adventures - March 2011

The Venice Rookery has changed a lot since I visited last year. Most of the Brazilian Pepper Trees at the back of the Rookery were removed and that has dramatically changed the chances of getting decent in-flight images. The Rookery is still a great place for photo opportunities though and I look forward to seeing the native species of plant and tree's thrive now that the invasive shrubs have been removed....hopefully leading to lots of new growth in the next couple of years which will start to cover the area's affected by this recent work.

The Brazilian Pepper Tree is one of the most aggressive and wide-spread of the invasive non-indigenous exotic pest plants in the State of Florida. There are over 700,000 acres in Florida infested with this tree. It produces a dense canopy that shades out all other plants and provides a very poor habitat for native species. This species invades aquatic as well as terrestrial habitats, greatly reducing the quality of native biotic communities in the state.