We have been enjoying watching the Great Blue Heron that visits our large goldfish pond in our back yard. Assuming that the same heron comes back repeatedly, it is a pretty creative one in its hunting techniques. The pond gets deep a short distance from its edges, so the area for wading and waiting is pretty narrow and the goldfish know better than to hang out there. Last fall we saw a Great Blue fly a few flaps across the pond and dive after a fish on the opposite side. Yesterday, we saw a Great Blue (the same individual?) swimming like a weird swan in the center of the pond, where the water is over 4 feet deep, jabbing successfully at the goldfish there. We saw it catch and eat three of them. The goldfish, descended from $2 worth of feeder goldfish from the pet shop many years ago, propagate themselves enthusiastically, so there are plenty for the herons and still enough to keep the mosquitoes down.
Lynn Bowdery [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
