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| Great Blue Heron |
Great Blue Herons appear blue-gray from a distance, with a wide black stripe over the eye. In flight the upper side of the wing is two-toned: pale on the forewing and darker on the flight feathers.
"Great Blues" are waders, typically seen along coastlines, in marshes, or near the shores of ponds or streams. It is not uncommon to see a Great Blue Heron wading in the Monocacy Creek.
They are expert fishers and snare their prey by walking slowly, or standing still for long periods of time and waiting for a fish to come within range of their long neck and "blade-like" beak. Due to specially shaped neck vertebrae, Great Blue Herons can curl their necks into an "S" shape for a more aerodynamic flight profile and to quickly strike at prey.
Great Blue Herons have been known to choke to death on a fish too big for the long, slender throats. Mice make up a large part of their diet, along with insects and other small creatures such as amphibians or reptiles. Watch this short YouTube video of the stealthy bird catching and eating a gopher!
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| Great Blue Heron flying with fish |
When building nests, the male collects sticks for nesting material from the ground or other nests. The female weaves them into a broad nest which is then lined with pine needles, moss or dry grass. This process can take three days or up to two weeks. Breeding birds nest in colonies that may contain several hundred pairs. The largest Great Blue Heron rookery in eastern Pennsylvania is the Quakertown Swamp, a 400-acre wetlands in Bucks County.
Great Blue Herons don't usually visit a backyard unless there is a fish pond in it, which can be devastating to your koi population. You can create a "hide"—a ledge or loose mound of rock—under which the fish can retreat. Or you can put a net over the water to prevent the heron from entering the pond. However, up close in the yard, these are big birds!
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| Stalking for fish |
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