before it’s snatched up by a heron? The heron in the above photo is actually looking down at me, not a fish, but you get the idea. The heron was in a pine tree above the path in Explore the Wild. What’s interesting about the photo is that it clearly illustrates the fact that herons have binocular vision and can see objects beyond and below their bills, helpful if you make your living plucking fish out of the water. AmongRead more
Posts tagged: #Great Blue Heron
The Harrying of the Ardeidae
For the past several years we’ve had a Great Blue Heron (GBH) in the Wetlands on nearly a daily basis. It seems to be the same blue heron, or at least it behaves in the same manner each time that I see it, it’s people shy and stays on the far side of the Wetlands when people are present. Other GBHs come into our Wetlands from time to time, I’ve seen as many as three at a time foraging amongstRead more
The Ice Cometh and the Ice Goeth
The first few days of the year brought with them the first ice over of the Wetlands. The ice will soon be history, all gone. I, or we, know that the ice will be gone within a day or two since the TV, internet, and radio tells us these things ahead of time. But for some of the creatures that live in and depend on the Wetlands for food, ice is not a good thing and it can’t be predictedRead more
Big Bull succumbs to Big Blue
Last year around this time I saw a Great Blue Heron take a Bullfrog from the Wetlands. From capture to swallow, the whole process took approximately 13 minutes. On May 19 of this year the heron (or another just like it) took another big frog out of the water. This frog was dispatched in less than ten minutes. Just another day in the Wetlands.Read more
The Big Gray Bird Nesting on the Island!
If you happen to be walking down the boardwalk into the Wetlands and see a large gray bird sitting on what looks like a nest… look closely at the bird. The bird is a Great Blue Heron, and it’s resting, not nesting. The resident heron sometimes retires to the island to rest during the day. It does most of its hunting for fish, tadpoles, frogs, and crayfish within the cover of the willows on the north side of the Wetlands,Read more
Winter’s Here!
The calendar says that winter has arrived. What’s been going on in Explore the Wild? Raccoons make nightly sorties around the Wetlands in search of food, which can be anything from persimmons to tadpoles, or a raid on the trash receptacles along the paths of the Museum (the trash bins are emptied each day before closing so the pickings are slim there). Raccoons are not the only animals roaming Explore the Wild. The tracks below were left in the snow aRead more
Birds & Butterflies of June
On the last day of the month, some of the avian and lepidopteran creatures of June… Can you guess how each animal got its name? What did you see at the Museum in June?Read more