A visit from a Great Blue Heron

A Great Blue Heron made a visit to the Smith Ranch today and I was fortunate to capture this beautiful bird from our studio window.  Here are some interesting facts about this bird.  It is the largest heron in North America.  In flight, it looks enormous, with a six-foot wingspan.  Thanks to specifically shaped neck vertebrae, Great Blue Herons can quickly strike prey at a distance.  Despite their impressive size, they weigh only 5 to 6 pounds thanks in part to their hollow bones--a feature all birds share. The oldest recorded Great Blue Heron was found in Texas when it was at least 24 years, 6 months old.

Pictured below is the Great Blue Heron that paid us a visit today.  It appears that he is looking directly at me while taking his picture.  Ain't he purty?

Heron nabs frog - Weak stomachs BEWARE!

 I have been waiting for the day to photograph a heron that often visits our property.  They are so skittish and practically impossible to photograph!  It was windy, rainy and cloudy but it made for some rich Autumn background colors of the scene of the heron as it took its time to catch a frog for lunch! I took these images from inside the studio using a 100-400mm lens.  I was having a hay day photographing this heron that was stalking its prey!  You can imagine my excitement when I looked up from the camera and the heron had caught a frog and was washing it before finally swallowing it.  In the last image below, you can see the lump in the heron's neck as the frog goes down the heron's throat!