Here is another shot of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) that I photographed 11 August 2012 in Alexandria, Virginia.
At first I couldn’t figure out why he had his mouth open in so many of my pictures. As I went over the photos, however, it looks like he may have had a stick or bone stuck in his mouth. Is that possible? Earlier in the day I watched as he speared and ate a fish and it’s possible he picked up some debris when he caught the fish (my photos of him spearing the fish turned out really dark but I’ll see if I can salvage any to post).
Eventually he did close his mouth.
Click on the image for greater details.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
We have a pair of these guys here in our valley in northern NM. These birds are nearly as tall as me and their wingspan is longer than I am tall. Beautiful things. Their mating call is terrifying.
Hopefully the female doesn’t find it to be terrifying. Thanks for the info on perspective. I’m shooting from pretty far away so it’s hard to appreciate how big they actually are.
Yeah – until you are standing 10 feet away from one, it’s difficult to understand how big they are. The heron feathers are as long as my forearm and I stand 5 ft. 2 in.
ouch! Wonder if it got a fish spine stuck in his throat.
That’s what I think, but it looked like he pulled up more stuff from the bottom of the pond too when he brought the fish out of the water, so it could be anything.