SNAPSHOT

While touring Yellowstone National Park last spring with his wife and father, JIM HERRLY spotted this large, white cranelike bird in a large pond. “I’d never seen anything like it,” says Herrly, a part-time professional photographer in Belgrade. He spent the next hour photographing the elegant bird as it waded the shallows. “He was all by himself and most of the time was standing still, but occasionally he’d take a few steps,” says Herrly. “It was snowing, and the wetness really highlighted the bird’s feathers.” Not until he returned home and checked his bird identification book did Herrly learn he’d seen a great egret. Common along the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River basin, this great blue heron relative is rarely seen in the Rocky Mountains. “We’re used to grizzlies and elk out here,” says Herrly, “but to see a big white bird with those beautiful long feathers, I just thought that was neater than heck.” n