Date: 15 January 2021. Bird of Prey ID Sought.

© janice142

The dock behind Seaweed had a new bird arrive this past week. It was small. My hotdog eating birds were wary. I am hoping one of my readers will know exactly what visited. Reading about the wildlife that surrounds my world is one of the things I like best about living aboard.
 

As a reminder, each picture on my website
can be double clicked for the larger full sized version.

You can see how afraid Isis is of the new bird. That is why I suspect this is a bird of prey.

Isis is my snowy egret. I cut her hotdog slices about 1/8" thick so she can swallow the pieces.

What surprised me is that the even Charlie the Great White Heron was carefully watching this newcomer.

For Charlie and the other large birds including my night herons, I cut the hotdogs into 1/4" thick slices.

Charlie's attention to that little bird is one of the things that alerted me to the difference between this feathered visitor and others. Charlie usually only pays attention to the Night Herons when they get too near me and the bowl of hotdogs.
 

From my Birds of North America book, here is Charlie my GREAT HERON ↓ aka great white heron.

The snowy egret is shown just above the brown cattle. Snowy egrets have yellow feet and are sometimes called
golden slipper egrets. They fluff out their feathers when fighting with each other, especially over my hotdogs.

Side Note regarding the snowy egrets: I noticed Isis (my snowy egret) today and yesterday display a new fishing technique. She would break/bite the hot dog slice into two pieces then drop one into the water. As the fish came up for the hotdog and Isis would attempt to catch said fish. I suspect that initially she dropped a hotdog slice. A fish ate it. As of yet, I have not witnessed success with her new technique.
 

What caught my attention was the unusual reactions of the other birds to this new one.

 

One of the neighbors here ("Hi Anisha") believes the bird shown above may be a juvenile night heron.

Quite frankly, I do not know. Other animals don't seem to fear the young of their own species.

 

I suspect this is an owl though the only one that seems similar is the burrowing owl. This area seems too well built to be home to one. Besides, it seems taller than others I have seen in years past.

Anisha did not see the newest bird and believes my verbal description is that of a juvenile night heron.
Here are two pictures I'd taken a previous year of another night heron. The beak is quite pronounced so I'm still unsure. What say others? I'm hoping Anisha will also reply as she's only heard my description, not seen the pictures.

Now that you have seen the pictures, I am interested in your thoughts. Is this a baby night heron, an owl, or some other predator entirely? I would like to read up upon the newest feathered visitor in my most used reference book, *Birds of North America. As a side note, I have not seen this new one around since that initial visit last week.

*Birds of North America is an affiliate link. That means if you chose to purchase the book or anything else via my Amazon link, I will receive a small amount of money.  There is no additional cost to you. And yes, your purchases are appreciated.

Free advice: buy the least expensive version available that is less than 50 years old. The contents are identical regardless of the cover. Not too old though, because my 1955 edition of Fishes (same publisher) has some loose pages because the binding glue dried out after half a century.
 

Thank you for reading. I appreciate that.

Does anyone have any guesses as to the identity of my bird visitor?
And, what is your favorite bird?
 

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