Great Blue Herron/gill

Comment

Comment by Johnny wilkins on March 30, 2014 at 2:45pm

How about a 10 foot sculpture to send a message that MeglaHeron is guarding the pond? Will that send a bigger message? Great advice on the decoy.

Comment by Keith Ritter on March 30, 2014 at 1:20pm

A life sizes decoy of a Herron will usually keep them away they are territorial an usually won't crowd another bird.

Comment by Johnny wilkins on March 30, 2014 at 9:44am

These killing machines will return to the same spots and they kill -but don't eat everything. They kill, kill, kill.

I started missing koi in my pond and thought they were "hiding". Came back one day to see a massive heron flying out of my tiny little pond. Thought I scared him off, but no. I came back one rainy day to my little back yard and the thing was back in there - scared the daylights out of me with the whooshing sounds 4 feet from my head before I knew what it was - it could barely fly out of my backyard with power lines, neighbor fences etc. I then observed it was using my garage as a landing land, then floating down into the yard to attack the pond from the garage.

We are house-to-house here. Not only did it stab and kill almost every koi in my pond, it had skewered 3 that were mortally wounded, puked up a whole fish from another local pond and had punched a hole in my liner. While the liner was cheap - I blamed the neighbor kids. There are measures you can take to protect your pond edges which include staking in fishing line, making the edges deeper to prevent wading as well as installing noise-makers that work with blanks to fire off rounds and freak out the heron. Once the heron puts your pond on it's killing route- you might as well consider him Dexter - you won't catch him, you had better do something to stop him or just write the whole thing off. If it doesn't eat it - it will kill it. That isn how it's wired.

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on March 30, 2014 at 8:32am

Ain't that often the case?!

Comment by Tony Livingston on March 30, 2014 at 8:26am

I'm not claiming the bird is evil, or unjust....it's simply doing what nature envisioned for it. Unfortunately, that is sometimes at odds with my own plans.

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on March 30, 2014 at 8:07am

I think Tony doesn't like herons, because they threaten the fish in his ponds.
He's put a lot of work and expense into the fish, so it's understandable the heron isn't his buddy.
I, personally, just reckon the bird is doing what he does. He's not mean, or wasteful, or noble — or any of the notions we ascribe to animals. He's just surviving.

And you know he's gonna try to swallow that fish. I wish I could see THAT.

Comment by Keith Ritter on March 30, 2014 at 7:56am

The bluegill in his mouth would try to swallow anything he struck at, if he couldn't swallow it would it go to waste. Man made lakes and ponds are constructed for easy access to fish by fishermen it also makes it easy for the wading birds. He would just as soon wade wetlands inaccessible to large fish and fishermen. But these are disappearing. Who's fault is that.

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on March 30, 2014 at 7:35am

Bet he's gonna try.

Comment by Keith Ritter on March 30, 2014 at 7:22am

The bird is just reacting to movement then instinct takes over. His survival depends on how quickly he reacts. He could swallow a frog or a snake the same length as that fish.

Comment by Tony Livingston on March 30, 2014 at 7:06am

"Waste not, want not", is not in the GBH's vocabulary.

"Hmmm....this one's too big to swallow, better go find another".......and that's what I can't abide.

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