Wading Birds Gone Wild - Swimming with the fishes!
I’ve been observing, photographing, and painting Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets for a long time now. I can’t remember ever seeing what I’ve been seeing the last few weeks. It’s been so unusual that I Googled it and found almost nothing. Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets are wading birds, they like to feed along the shore for fish by stabbing their pointed beaks in the shallow water when a fish swims near. Sometimes they stand and wait and sometimes they slowly stalk. But, never have I seen either of them plunge into deep water for a fish and swim around like a swan!
I always thought they would have a hard time with their large wings taking off out of deeper water. One time I actually saw a Great Blue Heron drop down into a pond to avoid a mad Belted Kingfisher and it looked like it struggled to make it to shore.
Not so! Both, the Great Blue Heron and Great Egret are more like pelicans, ospreys, and kingfishers than I could have ever imagined. They can hover over a body of water, plunge into water, swim around with their catch in their beak, and take off rather easily from the deep.
What would prompt a wading bird to do this when they are so adept at stalking their prey along the shore? Well, in this case, a Double-crested Cormorant is the answer! Cormorants have been feeding as a group in our local ponds. They were stirring up the fish by diving underwater and chasing them. The fish were relatively small and abundant, perhaps a recent hatch. Although, at one point a Great Egret dropped into the water and surfaced with a rather large fish in its beak. The fish was so big it was having a hard time swallowing it.
The Great Blue Heron and Great Egret stood along the shoreline jealousy watching the cormorants have a feeding frenzy, filling their bellies full of fish. It got to the point where the Great Ones just couldn’t stand it anymore! They wanted what the cormorants were having!
I’m not an ornithologist or a psychologist, but I consider myself a pretty good Pop Psychologist. :) The cormorants created a Pavlovian Response in the larger birds. As the cormorants surfaced with the shiny fish flopping in their beak, the herons and egrets natural instinct was to go steal the fish from the cormorants. They conditioned the herons and egrets to fly out over the water, plunge into it, and either steal a fish or catch one!
Once the fish were caught, the large wading birds would swim like a swan in the water while they adjusted the fish in their beak before consumption.
Then they managed to lift their large, wet wings and head back to shore. Again, they would stand and watch the cormorants stuffing themselves like they were at an all you can eat seafood buffet! Each time the stare down didn’t last long, and the spectacle happened over and over again, until the cormorants decided they were full and it was time for a nap.
I noticed that the Great Egret was usually the first one to enter the deep water going after the cormorant’s fish. At one point, I was so focused on photographing the Great Egret in the water that I didn’t realize that the Great Blue Heron had decided it wanted what the Great Egret had!
All of a sudden, the Great Egret pulled back in fright! All kinds of commotion was going on and it took me a second to realize that the Great Blue was descending feet first and about to attack the Great Egret. It was a scary moment for the Great Egret, but it escaped unharmed.
It was a good example of how dominant the Great Blue Heron is over all the other birds, including the slightly smaller and less aggressive Great Egret.
Cormorants can eat a high volume of fish, so I witnessed this entire scenario multiple times a day, and multiple times that week. Seeing the large wading birds plunge into the water and swim like a swan has been a fascinating experience for me and one that I wanted to share with you.
I hope you enjoyed reading about this unusual phenomenon of nature. I would like to think that I am the first to ever record such an event! :)
Thank you for your interest in my photography and my art. A large Brown Pelican is currently drying on my easel. It is entitled On the Watchtower and is now available on our website. Please check back soon to see what’s next on my easel.
“One of the joys of being an artist is having the freedom to follow my passion….”
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Drawing by William R. Beebe