Great Blue Herons can be found year-round across most of the United States. You’ll see them wading by water’s edge on those knobby, stilt legs, often motionless, as they await unsuspecting prey. This posing habit makes them a magnet for nature lovers.
Captured by Eric F. Frazier, May 7, 2025. Canon R5m2, RF200-800mm, 432 mm, f7.1, 0ev, 1/1000s, ISO1000, handheld.
How Herons Eat
Herons prefer eating several large fish per day and strike with surprising speed. They generally swallow their prey whole. Catching them in the act, however, requires photographers to match the bird’s patience.
Preparing a meal to slide down their long neck requires great skill using that long yellow beak. They alternately pinch and release the creature while tossing their head up and down to reposition it for swallowing.
These movements give prey a chance to escape and their competitors, like hawks and eagles, a chance to steal a meal. When fishing fails, herons root in the reeds to uncover snakes, frogs and insects. Failing that, they’ll leave the water and hunt small rodents, etc., on land, devouring them the same way.
The difficulty of learning to fish and forage means chicks mature more slowly (though not physically) and suffer a high first-year mortality rate. Only about three in ten Great Blue chicks survive predators and starvation to reach adulthood, build a nest and breed in their second year.
Captured by Eric F. Frazier, May 7, 2025. Canon R5m2, RF200-800mm+2x ext., 1,600mm, f18, 0ev, 1/500s, ISO1000, handheld.
Captured by Eric F. Frazier, May 7, 2025. Canon R5m2, RF200-800mm, 432 mm, f7.1, 0ev, 1/1000s, ISO1000, handheld.
How Do Herons Learn to Fly?
More remarkable to me is how Great Blue Herons learn to fly. Their bodies seem perfectly adapted for shoreline feeding but look too ungainly for flight. Bird guides tend to call herons “stately,” like statues. Ever see a statue fly?
Despite being as large or larger than a goose, Great Blues average 5-6 pounds. That’s around half to a third as heavy as geese. And their wings are much larger, so when herons fly, their takeoffs are quicker. Watching one launch and fly away is a chance to observe a natural marvel. They are more nimble in the air than you might expect. And much faster.
That marvel is hard to capture with a camera, as anyone who has tried can attest. When they’re up close, keeping their wings and limbs inside the frame is a challenge. And then, before you know it, they are vanishing from view.
Captured by Eric F. Frazier, May 7, 2025. Canon R5m2, RF200-800mm, 371 mm, f7.1, 0ev, 1/1000s, ISO800, handheld.
As Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
