Great Blue Herons

[FlyRod]

Excellent post, FlyRod. Heartbreaking about that little girl.

The moral of the story: as pleasurable as it may be to offer handouts, let nature take its course and try not to feed the wildlife.

Normally, I do not feed the critters I encounter, but this case was different.

You see, I SPEAK fluent Heronese (it was easier than Latin 101), and so when I first encountered Beaky, he "communicated" his wishes most succinctly.

To most folks, "Graaaaak" means, well, "Graaaaak". To those very few who actually can detect subtle differences in pronunciation, Beaky's first few "Graaaaak"s clearly meant, in order..."Howzit goin'?"; "Doin' any good?"; "Hey, don't throw that one back, I'm hungry!"; "Mmm-mmm, good!"and "If you don't get with it and conjure up, say, another ten or so of them there trout, I'm gonna stab you in the a-- with this rather sharpish beak 'o mine. You dig?"

Since he was between me and the shoreward end of the pier, well, what would YOU have done?

Fly Rod

A truthful man.

[BucketmouthAngler13]

Nice story FR.

We have a bunch of blue herons around here, but i've never gotton close to them. They are awful frisky. Infact, Ive gotton much closer to the local bald eagle than i have a GBH.

BTW i've heard that if you see a heron feeding, you should aproach that spot and fish near it. They say the birds always know the best spots.

[Fish Chris]

I think Blue Herrons are really cool birds. I don't doubt that they might eat hatchery trout somewhere..... but for all the thousands of hours I have spent, on trout planted waters, often with Blue Herrons nearby, I have certainly never seen it.

On the other hand, I have seen Cormorants eat Trout (by the ton) Bass, Crappie, even Catfish... spines and all !

Here's a Blue Herron shot I took a couple years ago at one of our trophy bass ponds. They are normally much more skittish..... But for whatever reason, this one let me get so close, I had to back off on the zoom to fit the whole bird in the frame :-)

Oh.... ever seen a Night Herron ?

And.... Ta Da ! Probably the luckiest shot of my life.... A Great Egret, with a Red Tail Black Bird hot on its tail :-)

Peace,

Fish

Oh, hey LBH, those are nice shots of yours too ! I have tried several times to get a good in-flight shot of a Blue Herron...... But all I ever get is there rear end as they are flying away !

[Daniel My Brother]

FC,

That last shot is incredible!

Dan

[CyBasser]

Herons are very cool birds - and possibly one of the best fish indicators around! Whenever I go to my usual reservoirs and I see herons on the shore, I go straight there. Their presence indicates that baitfish are around, and bass can't be far behind!

In the "science fiction movie canal" mentioned in some posts of mine and Vyron, we have been steadily catching nice bass ever since two herons showed up this season!

FC and LBH: GREAT PHOTOS 8-)!

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

Very, very, very cool pic FC.

My shot was lucky.  I had the camera set so when you pull the trigger, it keeps shooting till you let go.  I had it set like this because I was trying to get pics of an Osprey diving for breakfast.  Eric said "behind you, behind you" and along came big blue.  I pulled the trigger and out of maybe 12-15 frames, this was the only one worth anything.  Still worth it, I love a good pic.

[nboucher]

FC, that egret/blackbird photo is a classic! If you haven't already, you should get it published. I'll bet Audubon or any of the wildlife mags would buy it.

[Fish Chris]

Well thank you guys. Like I have said, I'm not a "great" photographer..... But if you snap that shutter enough, your bound to get a few good ones :-) .....just like, "if you make enough casts ...... :-)

Funny story to that shot though;

I had pulled into a gravel parking lot, with my window down, and camera beside me. I noticed the Egret, but wasn't so impressed. Then I see this Red Wing Blackbird swooping in on it, and pecking at it, and I thought, "Wow... That would be cool if I could get a shot with the Blackbird, right next to, or actually pecking at it". So, I take one shot. Too dark. Adjust the exposure. The Red Wing jumps in again... second shot. A bit too bright. Adjust again..... Third shot... Perfect exposure.... but, the Red Wing was nowhere in the frame. Now I'm thinking, "The camera is set perfectly.... Just give me one more chance". So, while I'm looking back at my camera for just a split second, from my periphreal vision, I see the Egret take off..... So, I just did the hail Mary, swing the camera, and click.

When I viewed the shot, I was pretty thrilled that I got all of the egret, in a great in-flight pose..... However, I had the exposure turned down so low (to keep from over exposing the bright white Egret) that I didn't have any idea that I got the Red Wing in the shot too...... Let alone, right at the exact moment it was nipping the tail !!!

So, when I got home and started my photo editing, then used the fill-in flash feature, I just about flipped out ! :-)

Absolutey pure luck !

But as a matter of fact, I did get Photo of the Day, on 3 different photo websites, and one actually chose it for Photo of the Month. Darn.... Had I got Photo of the year, I would have got a free camera ! Oh well.

Peace,

Fish

[Bassassasin12]

how did that not get photo of the year. That is a beautiful picture and I havent ever seen one like it except in magazines and stuff llike that. That is national geographic material. I need to upgrade my camera after seeing some of these shots. I though 6 mp was good enough, but I want to get professional quality now. Screw a new rod and reel setup, I have enough of those, professional photos will last me a lifetime. That is my next upgrade.

Well anyways back to the herons. I personally love them. I remember a time I was fishing and like avid one was just watching me fish. it was so cool. We kept looking  back at eachother too and when I got one he came a little closer. There is I think a family of these that live by my favorite pond. I always see a huge one and a little one walking the banks. I can get very close to these birds, but like to let them get up and move on their own without kind of forcing them to move by me walking to close to them. I think the only way they could affect the pond or body of water is that they might scare away bass that are holding close to the bank and force them to deeper water, which you may or may not be targeting at that time.

Cool birds though, and once again thanks so much for that pic Fish Chris, it inspired me to go camera shopping.

[Pa Angler]

In June of 2005 we stayed near Cape Vincent on the St. Lawrence River and we would feed these birds with Panfish that we caught amazingly they would let you get pretty close (within 15') when you had a meal for them.

It was kinda net to watch these birds eat the way they would flip the fish up in the air to swallow it head first.

Chow