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Fishing With…

Published August 22, 2022 Uncategorized 2 Comments
I recently spent nearly an hour shadowing this young Great Blue Heron around the edge of Sylvan Water.
Of darting thrusts of the bill into the water there were many. Most were unsuccessful. But the haul was still eight small fry and four dragonflies.
(Except for the first two fish images, these are otherwise different fish.)
A pair of mating Blue Dashers. Dragonfly and damselfly males clasp the female behind the head in mating.
This male didn’t let go…
So both went down the gullet. I’ve seen Green Herons pick off dragonflies before but this was the first time I’ve seen a Great Blue snarf them up. A smaller bird might knock away a dragonfly’s wings as unpalatable, but a heron, used to swallowing live fish, isn’t finicky.

2 Responses to “Fishing With…”

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  1. 1 Chuck McAlexander August 22, 2022 at 7:56 am

    would think a bird that size would prefer larger prey, but you make do with what there is. The speed is impressive.

    Reply
  2. 2 Karl August 22, 2022 at 11:19 am

    Great camera work, Matthew!

    Reply

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This work by Matthew Wills is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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