Mike Powell

On an unusually warm date late in November I came upon a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) fishing at my local marshland park. In similar situations I will often stop and wait for a little while to see if I can capture a shot of the heron catching a fish, but generally the heron is more patient that I am and I leave empty-handed.

This time, however, I felt unusually patient and I set up my tripod and waited. The sun was bright and was coming from the left, the direction in which the heron was initially facing. It is tough for me to remain continuously alert when waiting for an extended period of time and I did not react quickly enough to get a shot of the heron pulling the fish out of the water. I recovered rapidly and got some interesting shots of the heron with the fish that it had just caught.

Not seeing eye-to-eye

Expelling a drop of water

One of the biggest challenges for the heron is manipulating the fish so that it can be swallowed in a single gulp. Each time that the heron shakes and jiggles the fish, it runs the risk of dropping it. In this case, the heron turned away from the sun and began its maneuvers. It took some time to get the fish into position. In the last two shots, you can see the final steps of the process as the heron dips the fish in the water, presumably to make it slide down the throat more easily, and them flips the fish into the air a final time.

Initial adjustments

Moving into position

Dipping the fish

Final flip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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