Hunting Gray Heron
May. 2nd, 2011 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarien posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_nature
Within moments of this photo being taken, the heron took a very slow, cautious step, as if playing Grandmother's Footsteps, and then pounced out of view; when we saw him again there was a fish wriggling in his beak, which he then gulped down.
And this was in a fairly busy park on a fine Bank Holiday Monday!
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Date: 2011-05-02 06:26 pm (UTC)I used to see a grey heron where I lived, in a condo with a little pond out back, and I loved to watch him move because it was also so very slow and deliberate.
There were perpetually trees down in the pond, which the turtles would sun themselves on. One day the heron came along while the turtles were sunning themselves, picking his way ever so carefully along the log. He reached a point where the turtles were too tightly packed to step over, and stood there for a long moment, considering. Then, very slowly, he lifted one foot, set it gently on the back of a turtle, and began to take a step.
The turtle startled badly and fell off the log, and the turtles next to him followed, and there was a great flapping of wings and splashing of water -- and breathless laughter from within my condo -- before the heron settled back on the log, gave his wings a last flap, and continued on his way.
The turtles were miffed, but climbed back onto the log and went back to sunning.
It took me a while to stop laughing. :)
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Date: 2011-05-02 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
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