The female heron was attacked by a Great Horned Owl twice, early in the morning on April 8 and 9, while she was incubating the eggs. She wasn't noticeably harmed and the eggs are OK. No attack this morning. A little unpleasant reality injected into the pastoral scene. Cornell posted a video on YouTube. Great Horned Owl attacks Great Blue Heron in Sapsucker Woods Claire

One thinks of a heron as a slow, deliberate stalker...if this was a crow chick, I wonder if it was still in the nest or maybe out on a limb or even on the ground. If the move was made on a chick still in the nest high in a tree this would totally rewrite the way I think of herons going about getting their meals. As many pairs of crow eyes as there are back there, this was one bold heron thanks for the link...I'm on dial-up so YT is a pain for us, but I will set it up late one night and let it download this one.

I love watching herons. When they fly off, their wingspan is so much wider than I expect it to be. I used to bike a lot and would stop at a lake and watch a heron hunt minnows and frogs while I had a rest. Sometimes I would spook the heron (not on purpose) and I'd get to see it take off overhead. When DH & I go fishing I often spend more time watching the skies for birds esp. herons than I do casting!

Herons nest in a "rookery" where you will find a number of them all together while they are breeding, laying eggs, and caring for their young (the largest rookery here in Colorado is located at St. Vrain SP I believe). Otherwise they can be quite solitary, at least they don't tend to travel in flocks the way some other birds do. However, numerous individuals can congregate together in suitable habitat. I work at Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR in Commerce City and a couple weeks ago I counted 8 all clustered together in one location as they were fishing at a lake we've got on the refuge. A few days later I think it was four or five all standing in a neat row at the same lake.