Heron Makes A Catch!

 I went to Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge today, after school. I arrived there and didnt see too much. A dead snapping turtle, an oriole, and a now nest-less osprey were the coolest things I saw besides the heron. (The osprey nest featured a couple posts ago has vanished. The wind must have blown it off its snag.) The grey tree frogs have been calling for a couple of nights now. Bullfrogs and green frogs have both begun calling as well. Red winged blackbirds have gotten a lot quieter than they were back in march.

I checked in on the heron nests. None of them had visible chicks. All of them had a mother on top, tending to something (either hatchlings or eggs).

I tried to get closer to the nests by walking out on a peninsula. A male great blue heron that I had apparently passed by and not noticed at all took flight from the bushes. It flew past me and landed on a small island of wetland plants about 40 feet from me. I started taking photos. It stood there, looking at me, and then at the water. Soon, I got into a good position on the shore, and stopped making noise. The heron focused completely on the water now. I waited for it to strike. It kept extending it's neck out, away from its body, and then returning it to it's original folded up position. This continued for about 10 minutes. I got tired of looking with one eye through the lens and relaxed a bit. I started watching the females, up on their nests when "splash!" I looked into my lens. I had missed the heron's strike for food. A catfish was in the bird's beak, flopping, thrashing, and twisting around violently in an attempt to escape. The heron to my surprise dropped the fish on the mud, and struck at it with the same speed that it had the first time. The heron repeated this even once the catfish had stopped moving:

It was determined to spear that catfish as many times as it could. When it finally relaxed after about 2 minutes of dropping the kill, pecking it, and then picking it back up, the catfish was definately dead.

He took off. He flew low to the water for about 30 feet, way from me. After landing on the path, I saw that it resumed stabbing the fish. I jogged as fast as I could with a backpack on and a camera hanging from my neck, to photograph up close what happened next.

I quietly got closer as it stood by some beaver's castor mounds. I stopped at about 30 feet from it. To my shock, it was still stabbing that thing over and over. I think it was doing this to make sure its dead. Bullhead catfish have spines that poke out when they have been caught by a predator. Bluegill and many other fish do the same thing. The heron would have a spiky, live fish stuck in its throat.

Eventually, the heron rotated the fish and swallowed it headfirst. One gulp:

He then hopped up onto a fallen tree, waited a minute, and took off into the woods. There are more wetlands where he was heading, so he was probably still hunting.

This was my first time ever seeing a heron catch something. I guess I just had to be patient.