A Green Heron Goes Fishing

I have been sharing photos that I’ve taken at El Rio Preserve where the water level has dropped dramatically. On a recent visit the water was limited to a small area on the north end of the site. There was a “pond” shaped body of water and another canal shaped stretch of water. A Green Heron had been perched on a dead tree snag above the canal water (I shared photos of that perched bird in the last post). After a while, the Green Heron dropped down and walked into the water to fish for breakfast.

Smaller than Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets, the Green Heron might measure 18” from bill to tail. It looks stocky compared to the long look of the larger Herons and Egrets and may only weigh up to 8 ounces (a half of a pound). The Green Heron has a chestnut colored neck and breast with a greenish back and wings. Its legs are muddy because it had just stepped out of the water.

The Green Heron spent a short amount of time checking out the fishing opportunities at one end of the canal before heading back to where it originally began its quest. Green Herons don’t wade while hunting. They are prone to standing still in one place. All of the “fishing” photos that follow were taken over a period of time and the Heron didn’t really budge at all from its spot. Its hunting style is to wait for fish to swim near, and then to reach out quickly with its long neck and grab the fish out of the water.

Because the water had receded so much, all of the remaining fish were crowded into a smaller space. The Green Heron stood still in one spot, catching fish after fish without having to move. To have the best lighting, I stood with the sun directly behind my back and the Heron directly in front of me. From that angle, I was facing the Green Heron straight on and his body looked like a butterball. He did catch a fish!

I really wanted to capture the moment when the Heron tried to swallow the fish. By watching it closely, I discovered there were two steps to his method. First, he would stab for the fish, catching it almost every time. Then, he paused for perhaps one second before tossing the fish in the air and swallowing it. I began waiting until he caught the fish and was holding it carefully at the end of its bill. His toss happened too quickly for me to react so I learned to begin shooting after he caught the fish and at the moment he paused. Here are some photos to show my success!

The Green Heron positioned the fish in its bill so that when it tossed the fish in the air, it would be able to swallow the fish head-first. This happened incredibly quickly. My eye was never able to see this happening in real time but the camera, focused on the Heron ahead of time and with a shutter speed of 1/2500th of a second, was able to capture the moment. Who knew that the Green Heron’s mouth was so large??? The fish below curled into a circle as it floated in the air.

How is the Heron able to catch the slippery fish in the water, tweezer-like with the tips of its bill? (The challenge reminds me of the scene in the movie The Karate Kid in which Mr. Miyagi catches a fly in the air using chopsticks!) Then the Green Heron tosses the fish into the air just right in order to catch it perfectly each time. How? During my life there have been any number of times I’ve tried to throw a grape or an M&M or a bit of food in the air and catch it in my mouth. It’s practically impossible to do. The Green Heron’s skills are amazing!

And so it went: waiting, catching, tossing and swallowing. As the Heron plucked the fish out of the water, you can see the circle of ripples below the exact spot it pulled the fish out.

And then it raised its head to get ready for the next toss. You can sense the focus of this bird.

Here it had just caught another fish at the surface of the water. As I was looking at this photo, it seemed as if it was a duplicate of one I posted earlier in this post. If you scroll up, you’ll see what I mean. Even the rock on the shore behind the fish is in the exact same spot. Yet when I went to my images, I saw that the image below was taken three minutes after the first fishing image in this series. It demonstrates how the Green Heron remained in one spot for all of the time it was hunting.

It is always nice to get good looks at birds when I go out, but capturing special behavior like this makes the morning even more special.