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Daily Bucket Friday Sequence: Green Heron's Hunting Heats Up [1]
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Date: 2022-09-02
Appy Trails is in the Flint Hills of Kansas. This Green Heron at the pond on Appy Trails has a lot of color it shows more prominently than its green. Blue is one of them and being in Kansas I have it on good authority he voted "NO"!
It isn’t every day you get a Lifer but the day a Green Heron showed up at our pond was just that for me. It was my first ever in person sighting of this secretive species. I became a chronic clicker with my camera and the Green Heron obliged, providing photos of several successful hunting sprees as well as a window into the habits of it’s lifestyle.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns spinning around us. We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
Compiled 8/4/22 in the Flint Hills of Kansas
Appy Trails is our private nature refuge. At least that is the overriding intent in the way we manage our little piece of Flint Hills habitat. Here is a Google Earth ‘My project’ view from overhead.
Aerial view of Appy Trails (between the yellow lines). Distance between the yellow lines is ½ mile. North is to your right. The white line connecting top of the yellow lines is a hilltop township road marking our western border. Our driveway exits the road just about center between the yellow lines. Our horse pastures are the un-timbered areas along the road. The meandering tree line (bordering the crop fields at the bottom of the image) lines the banks of the river that is our eastern boundary. The lighter green blob west of the road is a watershed lake I estimate is about 25-30 acres in size. Our tiny little pond is visible just west of our driveway that passes by the upper barn and main barn. Using zoom you can see the green barn rooves. ZOOM I have gained access to most of the areas west of the road to the highway 9 miles to the west, then for another 15 miles to the east (most of the cumulative length of the Wagon Trail) in a swath 4-6 miles wide. The huge majority of all photos I post have been taken within that area.
During the extreme heat of this summer I allocated three short time periods each day as photo sessions at our little pond expressly for the purpose of capturing Swallows in the act of performing one of their behavioral traits. That would be dipping their beak and dragging their feet in the surface of the water while flying at high speed. They only do that once every little while, so a lot of time can go by between performances. So much for “short time periods”! During the lulls between Swallow performances I notice an incredible array of other wildlife making use of the pond habitat. Enter the Green Heron! All the Heron pics below were taken handheld on days in triple digit temps.
Green Herons seasonally occupy a large expanse of North America. I am elated to learn that includes my area. As I write this the Green Heron has visited here for the past six days in a row. It is important to note it has been very successful at procuring prey from our pond, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see it stay as long as the fish hold out. When it arrived today it came from the east so I assume it may be spending it’s nights along the river. Check the 3D map I toiled so diligently to include! LOL
It has been very informative and entertaining to watch the exceedingly colorful Green Heron stalk along the edges of the pond looking for food. Doing so it makes for a striking appearance, in more ways than one.
This is a view of the west bank of our pond. On the other side of the open water you see the stand of horizontally growing willows backed by the thick foliage of oaks and hedge. My ‘blind’ is a grove of cedars in the corner you can’t see at lower left of this pic. If you look closely at the willows growing down into the water at the extreme right edge of this photo you can see the branches just above the surface of the water the Green Heron chooses as a landing spot from his hidden perch in the taller oaks. That is where we will get our first glimpse of him.
Thanks to our big lens and tricky use of the manual focus ring we can get a decent view of the Green Heron perched on low growing willow branches just above the surface of the water. Meanwhile I am sitting on my bottom side up bucket seat in the cedars at the diagonally opposite corner of the pond. Sometimes the Heron spears a fish from this perch. Failing in that he jumps from his perch here over to the north bank that is the pond dam. You can see the dam is sunlit on the other side of the willows. That is what we now see him preparing to do. Once on the dam he will stalk eastward along the dam looking for things to eat in the shallows.
The Heron likes to stay in the shade of the northwest corner and begins his hunt there. If unsuccessful he will meander eastward along the dam bank, but will be out in the sunlight where we can get a better view of his actions. I was amazed what appeared to be a dark colored bird turn out such brilliant colors once in the sunlight.
The Heron stalks carefully, like a cat. He occasionally looks around to make certain there is no threat, otherwise his focus is on watching for movement in the ‘salad’ covering the shallows. There are a lot of edible possibilities in that environment, from insects to frogs and snakes, to his favorite which is small fish.
The only thing that interrupts the focus of a Heron is a threat to it’s own security.
Swallows are a very small bird, but are incredibly fast, agile, and aggressive. They consider this pond theirs and pay close attention to everything that happens there. Anything and everything is scrutinized and more often than not is harassed from the air. They immediately arrived to check out this Heron patrolling the shoreline.
Our heron pays close attention the the Swallows flying overhead, but I suspect it was assessing their threat with evil intent. The Swallows made their presence felt but wisely did not press the issue, so the Heron resumed its hunt. It doesn’t usually take long for it to find something of benefit. There are a million dragonflies flitting about, and nothing escapes his glaring eye.
A lightning fast stab with it’s wicked beak snags a dragonfly. ZOOM
A dragonfly is nice, but kind of like you eating just one chip. Our Heron is looking for a full bag. It resumes the hunt. It doesn’t take long to identify movement in the plant life covering the shallows. That plant life is topped by a lot of broad leaves once it reaches the surface of the water, but under that is free water surrounding nothing but the plant stems moored on the bottom. The Heron stops and spends a long while intently staring at a spot it seemed to be able to see between the leaves.
The Heron occasionally see something and makes a stab at it. Not every stab results in success.
When a stab is successful the bird wastes no time getting the victim secured. In this case he will have to get the fish separated from a lot of pond salad.
Now the fish is clean and ready to be positioned for a smooth entry into the Heron’s mouth. When he successfully stabs a fish it is much easier to separate from the fish. If he grabs it between upper and lower bill process gets much tougher.
The Heron has the fish turned head first, but it looks as though he will ingest a certain amount of salad at the same time.
One vigorous shake of the head and the salad was rejected. It’s time to eat, and eating doesn’t take much time for a Green Heron. There also isn’t anything in the way of celebration. He will immediately turn right back to hunting for more.
Did I say “no celebration”? On the fourth day of the Green Heron visit another, much larger Heron came to our pond hoping to snag some easy prey.
A Great Heron zoomed in to compete for the grub.
Finding a place to land took some planning, but the landing was a success. This big Heron didn’t stay an hour, but it was very nice to see it visit. After spotting me on my bucket it took off and left following the same route that brought it here. Zoom
While sitting on my bucket at the pond I saw lots of critters that weren’t Swallows or our Green Heron. There are a lot of frogs living here, and all things that like frogs, or that frogs like. Insects and predators are frequent, although most predators come during the night. I rarely see them. One of the most pleasant distractions was the frequent pond visits by Lark Sparrows, especially once the youngsters were in training.
Lark Sparrow training offspring in the art of survival.
A major league bug eater. Barring persistent Heron and/or Egret attacks a good number of the frogs in our pond reach rather impressive size.
We have a healthy population of turtles in the pond, Mud and Painted. Snappers seems to have found other haunts. The Painteds surface frequently, usually out in open water, but sometimes come into the shallows to fill up on whatever they find to eat, which is beneath the surface. That is why its head is wet while the shell is mostly dry.
Three Water Snakes that I know of live in our pond. They are easy to identify because each are a different size. This one is the largest of the three. I estimate it is about three feet long. These snakes are very shy. Once I let it know I was sitting there it hurriedly swam to a different area of the pond.
Having the Green Heron visit filled up some of time spent waiting for the Swallows to perform. I’ve been posting pics of the butterflies and dragonflies and flitter birds in the comment section of other Bucket diaries.
Our Heron is back to stalk and poke mode.
The Heron makes another strike! But it has snagged so much salad he is struggling to get it pulled loose from its hold in the mud on the pond bottom.
The Heron is leveraging all he has to pull the mass of weeds loose but it looks like success is at hand. I imagine I can see a fish on the bottom of that wad. Or it could be just wishful thinking on my part.
At long last he finally has it pulled free. Now to find that fish! Can you find it yet? He didn’t get this one stabbed, if there is even one in that mess. Zoom
Finally he’s got it, and now I’m sure I can see that nice fish tangled in the salad at the bottom of the pile. Zoom
Debris is cleared and the fish is positioned for deposit.
Down the hatch it goes! But it looks like it tripped the tilt button! Sorry for the poor photo but it looks so comical I couldn’t resist.
Just like that, the fish is gone! And so is this Green Heron’s hunting sequences.
The Green Heron did not return for the seventh day, but it sure was nice while it lasted. One thing is it proved Appy Trails small pond can deliver in a big way.
Other first time sightings for me in this area were an Osprey and a Yellow Billed Cuckoo. I also had visits from Summer Tanager, Painted Bunting, and Blue Grosbeaks. I’m hoping fall migration turns out to be a busier time for seeing unusual birds and getting pics of them.
Yellow Billed Cuckoo. It flew from the pond into the trees behind my cabin, which is where I snuck around trying to get usable pics of it. It refused to get out of the shade. ZOOM
First Osprey I’ve seen in Kansas. It came through in the late spring.
Thanks very much for sitting with me at the pond today. I know you all see a lot of things I don’t. Seeing them in the comments is the best treat on DKOS. Pile on, pards!
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