Ah! That makes sense. These birds certainly achieve an impressive intensity when they're focusing on the water. I almost trod on a green heron at this same pond a few years ago. It was standing on the edge of the concrete bridge and was so focused it didn't see or hear me coming. In turn, I was scanning the far bank of the pond and didn't look down. I probably posted that picture here, back then, Thanks, Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Encounter from a few years back.

Thanks! Still behind; I have another web album of photos I've not yet posted. We camped in the yard last night as usual in our screen tent, and apparently the jaguar is back..the dogs suddenly went crazy and we heard the strangest, loudest noises. I went online and found some of what we heard on this link-scroll down to audio clip http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/jaguar.html Besides the wails, grunts, rumbles, it also kept making explosive snorts..like an alarmed deer, except MUCH louder, more explosive, lower down, and dragged on and on until my bones vibrated. It seemed the sound wrapped around the tent, and I didn't know where to point the huge spotlight we keep next to us. DuBois plant to take a tape recorder with us this time, in case it returns. I also plan to download jaguar sounds and play them next to my web cams on the hill to see if we can lure it in for a photo. We've not seen its tracks since this march..guess it has a huge territory. Our neighbor was approached by a half grown black jaguar while hunting on our property in the fall of 2006 so it should nearly mature now. Just this spring, another neighbor a few miles away spotted a black jaguar on his farm, so it's still alive. Photo of suspected jaguar track, click on "full screen" http://picasaweb.google.com/rachelbro3/BigFootTracksScat#5317982295991557506

Wonderful pictures! I particularly like the third one with the neck straight out, probably when the heron spied the frog. The size is fine - GW automatically limits photos to fit the space available. I have the Canon SX30 IS - when it fails I'll move up to whatever the latest Canon SX camera is. Claire This post was edited by claire on Wed, Aug 21, 13 at 11:17

Probably a little blue heron. In real life they look very dark all over, not the reddish purple in the field guides.