What an awesome photo! Thanks so much for posting it. I love the Blue Herons.

A friend of mine hates them. He has a big koi pond in his yard and the Herons go for his fish. He calls them "stomachs on stilts."

I used to work in a building that was right by the river and we'd watch the Herons come in to fish. Really cool. We had Osprey come to fish there too. This is in the Seattle area. Where are you?

I had no idea that herons eat gophers. Great news for gardeners!

oceana, I posted this because I think all creatures are beneficial including the blue heron. Netting can be placed over Koi ponds to discourage blue heron from predating ornamental ponds. I have also heard that heron will not wade into deep sided ponds, but only shallow sided ones - not sure if this is true but worth a try. They are very beneficial and worth protecting.

I never would have believed it either, but I saw it myself. I kept watching the blue heron because I saw them walking silently over the grassy areas on our property and couldn't figure out what they were looking for. Then last year a blue heron speared a gopher and swallowed it whole in our back yard. They catch it and keep flicking it up in the air till they get it just right and then they swallow it whole. Another time a blue heron speared a gopher and carried it off, pesumably to feed it's young. Later I told locals about the hunting habits of blue heron like I had discovered something new. All the locals knew about the blue heron and their hunting habits.

There is a sycamore tree close to us near the river where blue heron have nested in the same spot for the last three years. The babies are in the nest for many months before they fledge - baking in the sun and rain and all kinds of weather till they are strong enough to fly away.

We live in southeast central CA along a river coming out of the Sierra - we are so lucky to see all the different wildlife here. Today I was painting the side of my house and saw a huge preying mantis and relocated him to a bush so I could finish painting.

By the way great horned owls and barn owls also prey on gophers. A nesting pair of barn owls can eat up to 1200 rodents in a nesting season feeding their young.

We have a koi pond, and this is a bird we fear.
In ten years, we only had one young heron visit our backyard and my hubby scared him off. I believe they don't frequent our yard because we are surrounded by large oaks and they don't like landing in areas like this. I know they can empty a koi pond very easily, especially our pond, our koi are friendly and practically come out of the water to greet us.

Joann

He's beautiful! Years ago, we would look forward to seeing them when we would visit Louisiana, but in the past few years they have actually made their way to our area (close to Memphis).

Beautiful picture - we have lots of heron, egret and other water fowl....nature is awesome.

We live in southern Maine on a pond and have a Great Blue Heron that frequently visits. We saw him trying to swallow and big catfish in our yard one day. I wish he'd kill some of the squirrels. Around here you only see a few at a time, which I thought was typical. Then we went to Prince Edward Island and there were hundreds and hundreds all together. It was amazing. Great photo BTW.

Two of my favorite things: herons and deodar cedars :) Are you in Southern CA (zone 9)? Or is that new global-warming zone 9, so it's up on a mountain somewhere?

DD has gotten us very interested in birds...living in the west where the wilderness is still easily accessible, I'm seeing more birds than I ever have before, including a blue heron who hangs out often on a cloveleaf of a long-established highway! Wildlife is having to adapt to our encroachment...I just send a good thought out to that heron every time we see him.

Images of wild predators in the public imagination are a fascinating thing, as exemplified by the reactions to this picture of yours. As our family is involved in cougar protection, we see (and personally feel) this dichotomy all the time. Dd has a much more advanced, nuanced appreciation of the web of life than I had at her age, to be sure. She can watch the most grueling nature show (and the MOST grueling one I've ever seen was on on Friday night, about a juvenile lion and a newborn oryx...omg...) when I have to turn away. I hope there will be many more like DD in her generation who value and respect wildness for itself and its necessity to our ecosystem, and don't want to control it all for their own convenience--predators like the heron (and the cougar) will be *crucial* to our life on earth in the coming decades, IMO.

Not to mention that the heron (and the cougar) are extremely photogenic :)

Off to buy mold testing equipment...

What a great photograph, a real work of art, the picture and the visitor!

Beautiful pic - we are also blessed w/ visits from Blue Herons - magnificent creatures! This summer I watched in awe as this one Heron struggled with a snake from on top of the dock. The part of the snake not swallowed wrapped around its beak - I was terrified the Heron was going to lose - not to be - he regurgitated the entire sake, started over , and finally won. Definitely survival of the fittest in that case!
I did not know they eat gophers - I suppose we have too many fish, snakes, crabs and other bay life to keep the Herons from eating the gophers and moles that are destroying my yard!

My father lives on a lake in MN. and he has seen the Heron take squirrels out of his back yard. He said that the squirrels put up a great fight in side the Heron"s throat and you can actually see the squirrels bouncing around. If you have never been to a Heron Rookery it is well worth it. It is a place they return to every year in great numbers to rear thier young together.If you arrive at dawn you are astounded by the great number of parents swooping in to feed the young who are squacking so loud it is like a synphony to the ears- and eyes! There is a well established one in West Bloomfield, Michigan where hundreads of birds gather every spring.

One emptied my friend's pond. He had fish that were very old. He was devastated, to say the least.