Earlier today I posted about the Heron fledgeling and I finished off with warm fuzzy feelings for the baby bird. Then I went out for a walk. It has been a gorgeous day, the sort of day when people say, “Sure wish we could bottle this!” In that frame of mind, I began my walk around the pond. I took a couple of photos of berries, I looked for the Lesser Yellowlegs that has kept just beyond my focal range for two weeks.
As I came around a corner, there on the far lawn was a Great Blue Heron having what I thought was dinner. As it turns out, it was just an appetizer.The image below is cropped. I must have been 100 feet away. Still, it’s a pretty clear shot -Heron/fish.
I hurried around the bend, hoping to get a closer shot.
By the time I came around the corner the big bird had returned to the water’s edge, above. I can’t really describe the intensity of this bird’s focus. This bird was on a mission. It didn’t care that I was there. It cared about one thing – hunting and catching.
In the photo below, it’s doing some sort of “fluffing up.” I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s saying, “That little fish was delicious!” Or if the fluffing is something like the call of a warrior before battle.
It soon began to creep along the shoreline with deliberate and intimidating steps. Its eyes were hunting for whatever sign it sees in the water that tells it where a fish is. It was unnerving to me.
The frame below caught me by surprise. I was seeing it through the lens. I just kept shooting when I realized the spread of the wings was not related to flying off.
The images that follow are a horrifying display of the Heron piercing a bass and pulling it from the water, marsh weed dangling and dripping from its stunned body.
I hope the picture below will enlarge for you if you click on it. (For some reason that feature didn’t work in my last post.) It is a remarkable and horrifying scene – all too real a display of nature’s way. There is breathtaking beauty in the fan of the Heron’s spread wing. The sun chose to dance on the bird’s beak. And the colors of the predator and prey are eerily alike.
The faint of heart should skip the image below. I sometimes don’t use photos I take. Even images from the animal kingdom can strike me as too personal. I am not sure about posting this image. I see in this shot the word “desperate.” The Heron face is frozen in its desperate quest to survive. The wide mouth of the bass is frozen in hopeless, desperate shock.
I don’t know why the Heron takes its catch away from the scene of the catch. But it does. Below, it lifts off with what I think had to have been an eight inch bass.
You can see, by the bubbles on the surface of the water as well as the droplets in the air, that this all happened rapidly – a total of eight seconds passed on the camera’s clock from the time the Heron opened its wings to the last shot below. Nature is harsh.
Above, the effort of the Heron to lift off is clear.
The drama is over. A brief viewing of survival in the life chain is ended. The bird and fish, just barely visible in the photo below, have played their part.
The setting sun catches the lens as one day, just one day, closes.
This post is my salute to the Heron. You mesmerize me, but you’ll never have my heart.
SilverLining 
Very cool captures!!!
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Hi Jean!I am so psyched about that post! How amazing is that sequence of photos!? I have a long history of struggling to like the Heron but being so distressed by its visious hunting. I've been writing about it for three years. Thanks so much for visiting my site again. Plus THANK YOU for being my first official follower!I'll visit your site over the weekend when I have more free time.Thanks again, Mary
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I am astounded at your pictures! It's almost like being there.
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Hi Emma,I keep coming back to this post – amazed myself by the photos. It was remarkable. Mary
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