Eleven years ago, I rented a backhoe to clear brush off my property one Saturday. My wife went shopping, and my teenaged son and I started messing around with the backhoe; they are like a bulldozer but also have a long-armed scoop, and are real cool.
We forgot to clear the brush, and instead we dug a 15’ x20’ pond two feet deep. It would have been much bigger but my wife came home early and stopped us.
I put a engineered plastic liner in the hole, added with a water filtering system and pump, and planted lilies and irises from the golf course ponds where I work part time. I filled the new pond with water, and stocked it with forty comet gold fish, each about an inch long.(Casassius auratus).
The goldfish flourished and grew over the next year. Some displayed dazzling colors. But my favorite was an 8-inch long quartz-white fish named Moby Dick, of course. It recognized me, and if I walked along the pond’s edge, it would come swirling to the surface and would eat pellets from my fingers.
Then one day, I didn’t see Moby any more.
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A little later, still in 2006, I was on the phone with an attorney, discussing our Clean Water Act citizens suit against a Koch-owned paper mill. I was listening to him, and gazing out the window. He paused.
“Holy m----k---g s—t!!” I responded.
“Huh,” he replied, taken aback at my outburst.
I was rattled myself. I had just watched a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) glide into my back yard, its 6-foot wingspan casting a large shadow. It landed on the pond’s edge, and its neck swiftly snaked out and it speared a goldfish. A big goldfish. Gulp, it was gone. And then it speared another.
I cussed from shock. So that’s what happened to Moby Dick.
The heron showed up again in my back yard yesterday, for the eleventh consecutive year. It stayed for an hour, catching goldfish much bigger than I knew were there. The lead picture in this Bucket was taken yesterday.
That made it a happy day, to see the Heron in my backyard for the 11th year in a row.
I only take pictures of the Heron from inside, through windows, in an effort not to spook it. I figure It must be hard up for food to come hunting in the suburbs, so I want it to fill up. If it glimpses me from an overhead window, it will curse, “Gwaak!”, shit a pint of whitewash, and slowly fly away, its large wings stroking the air.
Sometimes neighbors walking in the street will be shocked to see it rise from my yard. Herons are danged big, especially close up.
“What was that?” a young boy asked me, as he walked a dog with his mom, and the heron flew just overhead.
“A peradactyl,” I replied. I couldn’t resist.
In that picture above, the top of the black stick in the water, in front of the heron, is 30 inches tall. This heron appears taller than that, at its shoulder. I try to measure its height, because I think we may have another smaller heron visiting sometimes. Sometimes I see two herons flying on the same path a hundred yards apart, late in the afternoon. Ma and Pa?
Since we are uncertain of the Heron’s sex, we call it Billy, taking an androgynous approach.
I see Great Blues all the time at the golf course, and they all appear, to my unpracticed eye, to be identically marked. The Cornell website says the juveniles have two-toned wings, which I’ve never seen. Here is the backyard Heron in April, 2010.
There appears to be a distinct reddish mark on this Heron’s left “shoulder,” similar to the markings in the most recent picture.
The Heron usually attacks by landing on a nearby rooftop, and scrutinizing the ponds; there are three ponds now, including the Frog Mitigation Area. This Heron’s eye view shows how the unfortunately vividly colored goldfish stand out.
After the Heron spears a fish in one pond, it casually struts over to the other pond for another try, where the fish aren’t so spooked. It usually fishes for about an hour.
It’s a happy day to see the Heron arrive in my back yard for the first time each year. I feel good to see them, and having a “crane” in the yard must drive my feng shui ratings off the charts.
Their average life is 15 years, so it’s possible this could be the same bird(s) year after year. But a suburban heron must dodge power lines, dogs and coyotes, poisons, and even bald eagles to survive. Here’s hoping the herons are coming back to these ponds long after I’m gone.
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Now It's Your Turn
What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments. But before you go, one last look.