The Last Bit Of July

Here's the calendar page for the last few days in July. This was taken at the Venice Rookery, a small island in the middle of what I suspect is basically a drainage pond. But this small island attracts dozens of large birds as a perfect nesting site. They build nests of sticks and twigs, hauled one piece at a time from the shoreline, lay a few eggs, then sit for a few weeks. Eventually, you get baby birds, and then the noise starts. All those babies want to be fed, and the only way they know to make that happen is to make noise. The parents make constant trips in search of food, back and forth, back and forth, each time bringing a little bit of food just so their chick will be quiet for a few minutes. In the picture, that's a pair of great blue herons. I can't hazard a guess as to how old the baby is, but he's probably not too far from fledging and leaving the nest.