The well-travelled heron

I am an occasional contributor to the Bird Weekly Photo Challenge: and this week’s appealed. Birds that eat fish as their primary diet. Well, I have images of gannets, gulls and guillemots. I have puffins, though not a single photo features one with a beak crammed with sand eels.

But the fish-eater I love the most is the bird I so often see snaffling goldfish from our landlord’s pond: or as I walk the banks of our neighbourhood River Ure : the one I spot as I hang over the sides of bridges and boats in Spain: the one fishing in among the townhouses of Dordrecht, the Netherlands: the one in my featured photo who was flying down the canal-side in Busan South Korea. It’s the heron, the grey heron.

  • Sneaking goldfish from our landlord’s garden pond.
  • Just a few hundred metres from our house, fishing on the Ure.
  • Parque Natural de la Albufera, Valencia
  • Evening on the River Guadalquivir, Córdoba.
  • Dordrecht, the Netherlands
  • With an egret companion on Nosterfield Nature Reserve, North Yorkshire

Click on any image to see it full size

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and living in North Yorkshire, where I walk as often as I can, write, volunteer, and travel as often as I can.

43 thoughts on “The well-travelled heron”

  2. They are elegant looking birds and are a constant visitor around the Tauranga estuaries. Funnily enough, I spent time yesterday after my cycle ride, capturing one that was playing up to my camera lens.

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  9. I’m a fan of herons. There is usually one or two on the Hayle estuary, but my favourite was the Grey Heron that used to stand opposite our house in Marina da Gama in Cape Town. So still you would think it was a statue.

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    1. Blame WP. It tried to arrange a divorce, but it was only a separation in the end. Everybody happy now! And it seems everyone loves a heron. Look at all the pro-heron comments!

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      1. We can always blame WP. I guess you didn’t want a divorce. Counseling always helps. LOL! Yes, herons are certainly a favorite. I guess I take them for granted because I see them all the time. I need to share them more. 🙂

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  12. They are fantastic and every time I see one in real life or a photograph, I see that birds evolved from dinosaurs and love that fact. Our own little, gentle velociraptors don’t you think unless you’re a fat, goldfish.

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    1. Indeed, although luckily I don’t think their prey suffer long. A mighty shaft from above, and … game over. But yes, they really have dinosaur written all over them, don’t they?

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  17. Pingback: Bird Weekly Round-Up – Week #39 – Our Eyes Open

  18. A heron once flew straight across me when I was cycling along the grand union tow path – I got such a surprise and it was bigger close up – for a moment I thought a pterodactyl had flown past me!

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    1. I’m not surprised that you thought that. There is indeed something of the dinosaur about them. They’re normally warier of humans than that though, aren’t they?

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