Great Blue Herons at Ridgefield

Hunting Herons

A great blue heron swallows a small invertebrate at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

My Herons

I didn't grow up around herons so they were always a bit of a novelty to me, I'd occasionally get a glimpse while hiking but they were shy and distant and easily spooked. Then I spent a summer working in Florida and was stunned to see herons that would let you walk right past them.

Whenever I saw a picture of a heron eating a fish, it was always a large fish, or a large eel or snake. Some photography leaders even bring along large fish for their attendants to toss to tolerant herons so their students can get pictures of herons with a large catch.

When we moved to the Northwest I was pleased to see how common herons were in the Willamette Valley, but their behavior surprised me on two accounts. The first was how often they hunted on land for prey like the Townsend's vole. The second was that, when they did hunt in the water, they caught the expected prey like large bullfrogs but spent most of their time catching small invertebrates like salamanders and tiny fish.

I wanted to photograph these behaviors to show off how my herons eat and live, and I've done alright on the vole front but always struggled with the small invertebrates. With a bird as large as a heron, a tiny little fish at the tip of its bill was barely even visible in the picture.

I saw this hunting heron in Horse Lake and parked my car with the hopes it would eventually come my way. And eventually it did, catching little invertebrates all the way, and then I was blessed with this shot when it flipped one tiny little creature into its mouth.

A great blue heron captures a Townsend's vole in its beak

It’s Better To Be Lucky Than Good

Townsend’s voles live in the fields at Ridgefield, and I suspect you could track the natural ebb and flow of their population by the number of hunters out looking for them. It isn’t just herons that work these fields, as egrets, hawks, owls, harriers, kestrels, and coyotes all feed on the voles and mice here.

This particular heron seemed to be rather lackadaisical in its hunting and I figured it wouldn’t catch anything. But I was in a quiet mood and enjoying watching it, so I decided to just sit still for a while. After making a few half-hearted stabs at the ground, it wandered into the taller grasses where it was mostly obscured as it hunted low to the ground.

Suddenly it froze and began wiggling its neck, so I knew it wasn’t just goofing around and got my camera ready. I was confronted with the classic problem, do I shoot the picture as a horizontal or a vertical? There’s no way of knowing the best composition ahead of time since you don’t know what the heron’s going to do when after it strikes, but I went for the vertical since if it stayed low it would be completely obscured by the grass.

The heron found its mark and popped up vertically before swallowing the little vole, and I love the way the taller grasses in front envelop the heron in a sea of green. I got lucky on that morning but can’t say the same for the unfortunate vole.

Close-up view of a great blue heron swallowing a Townsend's vole at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Revenge of the Dinosaurs

Many people seem shocked by the idea that birds might have descended from a line of dinosaurs that didn't die out with the rise of the little furry mammals. Spend some time watching herons take their revenge on those little furry mammals and the idea doesn't seem so far-fetched.

This great blue heron had the most efficient hunting streak I've ever seen, I saw it strike the ground six times and catch something every time. Three times it caught a Townsend's vole like the one it's swallowing here, three times Pacific treefrogs. The little treefrogs hardly seemed worth the effort but I've seen herons catch them many times.

An adult great blue heron hunts for voles on a rainy day at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

The Lovely Wet

I love the many shapes herons take and with this hunting heron, I especially liked the lines and curves of the damp display feathers on a rainy winter's day. I like photographing in the rain (a good thing here in the Northwest) and Ridgefield's auto tour even lets me stay relatively dry while I do it.

Weak and Soft-hearted

I have mixed feelings watching herons hunt for voles, on the one hand I'm fascinated by the patience and then swiftness of their attack. But my soft heart feels for the little mammals when I see their struggle and hear their panicked shrieks in the last desperate moments of their lives. And even though the ordeal lasts but a few seconds, in pictures their stares and cries haunt me in perpetuity. In consolation, from what I've read voles don't usually live more than a year anyway, so perhaps the herons aren't shortening their lives that much. At least it helps me sleep at night. ;)

A great blue heron catches a Townsend's vole in its beak at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Great blue heron hunting voles at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Great blue heron with a Townsend's vole in its beak at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Slow Steps

When it heard a vole, ths adult heron stepped towards the vole, slowly moving one leg forwards and then the other, its eyes never straying from its target. The herons caught a number of voles that morning.

Snared

The first time the heron caught this vole it didn't get a great grip. The vole struggled and eventually the heron dropped it, but the second strike snared the vole for good. The vole wasn't fighting nearly so much anymore, and a few seconds later the heron had flipped the vole into its mouth and swallowed it whole.

An adult great blue heron hunts in heavy fog at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

The Foggiest Idea

One of the things I've been trying to do this winter is take pictures at Ridgefield that tell the story of the refuge and the animals that live there. And one of those stories is the fog that often envelops the refuge on an early winter morning.

My original idea was to photograph the heron upright against the fog so its silhouette would be instantly recognizable — and I did take some pictures like that — but when the heron dropped into a horizontal hunting pose I loved the subtlety of the picture. Peaceful and tranquil yet a reminder that, visible or not, the life-and-death struggle never ends.

Juvenile Herons

A juvenile great blue heron hunts for Townsend's voles as snow falls all around it

White on Top

When I noticed a juvenile heron hanging out at the end of the auto tour at Ridgefield during the Christmas break of 2009, I made an effort to photograph it every chance I could. One thing in particular I wanted to photograph was the most distinctive differences between juvenile and adult herons: the lack of white on top of their heads. On this day, though, the young heron had plenty of white on top.

You win this round, Mother Nature.

A close-up view of juvenile great blue heron hunting for Townsend's voles at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

No no, little vole, stay hidden if you want to live to see the sun rise!

This whimsical portrait of a juvenile great blue heron on the hunt is my favorite picture from the Christmas break of 2009. I always love arriving early to Ridgefield and finding a good frost on the ground, although I didn't have many of those opportunities during this warm winter.

If you're wondering, the vole won this round.

A juvenile great blue heron lays low in the grass to avoid being seen by adult herons nearby

Laying Low

I was off for a couple of weeks over Christmas break at the end of 2009 and spent nearly every day at Ridgefield. That hadn't been my plan, I hoped to do some hiking in the Columbia River Gorge, but each day at the refuge brought something new and I was always curious to see what the next new thing would be.

This day's surprise came after I had settled in for a while to watch a young heron hunt in a meadow. It suddenly dropped to the earth and lay prone on the ground, I didn't understand why until I looked up and saw two adult herons flying nearby. The young heron won this round of hide-and-seek as the adults left it alone and it resumed the hunt, but a while later one of the adults did come back and chase it away.

Before & After

Compare the head of a juvenile heron (on the left) and an adult (on the right) and you'll notice that the adult has a lot more white coloring, both on the top of its head and in the face behind the eyes, as well as dark plumes extending out the back of its head. You can ignore the brown and red coloring on the adult's bill compared to the youngster, as the brown mud is from hunting for voles in the meadow, and the red blood is from hunting for voles successfully.

A close-up view of a juvenile great blue heron's head

A close-up view of an adult great blue heron's head

Other Herons

	Hey You Voles! Get Off My Lawn! Appearing to do its best cranky old man impersonation, this heron was just yawning on a cold winter morning. You can see frost on its shoulder and the frozen waters of Rest Lake behind it. You really don't want to know how long I sat there waiting for it to yawn.

Close-up view of a great blue heron's head at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Eyes

I came across this great blue heron on the same morning I watched a group of bald eagles scavenging a nutria carcass. I pulled out the big telephoto as I wanted to focus in on just the hunter’s face and highlight its mesmerizing yellow eyes. It wasn’t moving much in the rain, so I eased the car forwards and backwards until I both got the background I wanted and a good direct view of its face.

I took several pictures at different apertures, this one has a rather shallow depth of field which blurs the background nicely but unfortunately leaves the bill and feathers of the body blurred as well. I have some with more depth of field but a less blurred background, and like both approaches for this subject.

A great blue heron with the feathers on its head puffed out at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Bouffant

You only thought this hairstyle died out with the 60's! This heron was scratching its right eye with its clawed foot and ended up with this poofy do.

Close-up view of the feathers of a great blue heron

Who Am I?

Given that this is a page of great blue heron pictures, it shouldn't be too hard to guess who owns this feathery back.

I took the picture of the feathers while the heron hunted for fish in the shallows of Rest Lake, then focused on its face when it wheeled around to listen for voles in the grasses on the shoreline.

A great blue heron flies from its perch on a foggy and frosty morning at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Early Departure

A heron flies from its perch on a foggy and frosty morning along the auto tour.

	Brown As the heron slowly stalked its prey through the tall brown grasses, mostly obscured from sight, it paused and stood upright for a moment. When it glanced over in my direction, a gust of wind blew out its neck feathers and I had my picture.
	Shadow of a Hunter A heron perches on a downed tree as its shadow is cast over the green water. Even though it was actively scanning and listening for movement in the water below, its perch seemed too high to have a chance at capturing any frogs or fish, so it may have been in reconnaissance mode. It eventually started hunting closer to the water.
	Blue Many of my heron pictures from Ridgefield show them hunting in the fields, which they do frequently, but they do also hunt in the more conventional sense of working the waters of the refuge. This heron was slowly traversing a pond when it raised its head to check out the surroundings before lowering its head again and resuming the hunt.

A great blue heron and four great egrets hunt for voles in a meadow at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

The Killing Fields

At the end of the auto tour route in the River S Unit, there are several large fields that provide a close view of a variety of the Northwest’s marsh predators. Most commonly seen are the large waders (like the great blue heron and four great egrets seen here) and birds of prey like red-tailed hawks, northern harriers, and American kestrels. But you can also see coyotes, bald eagles, and rough-legged hawks plying the fields. In fact, on a good day, you might see almost all of them sharing the large fields as they each hunt in their own distinctive ways.

Young Blue at Sunset

It’s hard to get a sense of how small this young heron is from the picture, but it was noticeably smaller than an adult heron (but still larger than many of the smaller herons like a green heron or the night herons). The dead giveaway that this is not an adult, though, is in the head: young herons lack the white stripe that runs the length of the adult’s head. This one is young enough that the feathers at the top of its head aren’t really blue.

Treed

I was a bit shocked when I moved to Oregon and saw herons and egrets in the trees. It turns out to not be all that unusual, in fact they nest and raise their young in trees, just something I hadn't seen before. This heron wasn't choosing a nest site, it was late fall and it was just enjoying this dry vantage point above the marsh.

A great blue heron in a tree at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

An environmental portrait of a great blue heron in a tree at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

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July 30, 2011