Two friends I met on a bird banding trip to Vomit Island aka West Sister Island.

I love this picture - can only imagine what they're saying to each other. LOL

Hey, Maggie, you found the photos forum that I'm testing.

The birds are Black-crowned Night Herons. I used a small ladder to reach the nest. I plucked the youngsters from their abode and handed them down to the bander. After the bander applied the bling, the birds were handed back up to me, and I plopped them back into their nest. When I noticed them razzing me, I got out my pocket camera and took a couple photos and a short video.

The video is funny. The birds lunge at me, trying to scare me away. Maybe I'll post the video, but it's real short because I was needed at another nest. You can see the band on one of the birds in the above video.

The slightly older and more developed young Black-crowned Night Herons would climb out of the nest and up the tree when approached, so we had to be sneaky and quick to grab them before they had a chance to move. But the real young ones, like in the above photo, were too small to climb, so they tried to scare us off by pretending to be big and frightening. They would flare their mouths, spread their wings, and stand tall.

Look at the legs and feet of the birds in the above photo. They look like little, hairy dinosaurs.

West Sister Island is nicknamed Vomit Island because the birds puke, crap, and urinate on anyone they perceive as a predator. So when I grabbed a young bird from the nest, I was careful to hold it well away from my body. And when I held the ladder for someone else to grab the birds, that person would hand the birds down to me, and I had to watch out for the birds' bodily fluids raining down on me.

We still got "hit" at times. We smelled funky, but it was quite an experience.

From a few years ago: BSBO and Vomit Island to be featured on Discovery Channel's 'Dirty Jobs' show

JR - very familiar with the reputation of the Island and enjoyed the Dirty's Job show, so I have a bit of an idea of how your day must have gone.

Thanks for the story to go along with the photo...I think this is one of the funniest photos I've seen.

Love the idea of a photos forum - thanks for adding it.

That is so cool! Great photo, jr. If you didn't know they had wings, looks like they're holding hands and singing. Thanks for sharing.