Originally posted by luftfluss 
I really like the 2nd shot, the portrait is very cool.
Do you think that he's become accustomed to humans as a source of hand-outs? I encountered a swan earlier this year who swam right up to me - within a yard - with his tail wagging like a dog. He followed me for a few minutes up and down the shoreline, then swam away when no food was forthcoming. The episode was cute, but also a gentle warning that "wild" animals can become too dependent on humans.
Probably, a bit. Though we have a rule that you're not supposed to feed the wild animals around here. A rule that I cheerfully break by leaving bird seed out in the winter and rabbit food under the house pretty much all the time, cough, cough. I don't feed the big birds though. Plenty of fish to be had. We have lakes all around and a bayou.
There are tons of these birds around here. Herons of all kind, pelicans, cormorants, et all. We get whole flocks of the little ones walking across the yards. Hawks, eagles, tons of prey and little birds too usually. When it's not too hot outside they roam all over. Usually they're a lot more skittish than this one was though. It surprised me.
They will sit on the docks and beg bait shrimp and fish off the guys who like to sit there with their rods, at the door of my local fish market. But they usually don't come petting close like this one did. That was unusual even for me and I'm kind of a wild bird lady. I tend to attract them for some reason and they're just not usually too scared of me.
These were taken at my parent's place. Dad came outside on me and scared this guy actually. I had him standing right beside me while I was talking to him, hardly a foot away, and then Dad just "had" to come out and see what I was out shooting right then. He opens the door and the heron sees him and the cat sitting there and that was it, the bird took off...
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