The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge.
We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
|
.
November 28, 2019
Wiley Slough, Skagit Flats, PacificNorthwest
Besides the shorebirds on that calm sunny Thanksgiving day, I saw a Great Blue heron fishing, closeup. Herons are masters at fishing, due to a variety of specialized adaptations.
This was in a flooded channel formed by taking out a dike that had separated Skagit Bay from the delta flatland. It’s called Wiley slough again after the estuary reclamation project and you can see a sign of its earlier use as dry land in the dead trees nearby. They were drowned once the saltchuck was free to flood this piece of flatland during high tides. The dike, breached in 2009, was built in the 1950s and had kept tidal waters out for enough years to allow trees to grow tall.
(scholarship.law.umt.edu/...)
Here is a series of photos of a fish getting captured in the Slough.
Herons often tilt their head at an angle to improve the visibility of their prey. HeronConservation.org has 11 pages of heron behaviors named and explained; a few of the hunting ones are excerpted below:
The heron holds its head in one of several identifiable ways that permit it to influence its visual field, usually to make optimal use of its narrow binocular field of vision. It may extend its neck and tip its head so that its bill points straight down towards the ground. This Peering Over head posture reduces glare and distortion. It also provides a binocular view of a potential prey item by looking down the tip of the bill rather than beneath it. Head Cocking is when a heron turns its head to one side so that it is looking straight down with one eye and straight up with the other. This is probably used to fix on a prey item with its monocular vision. In other birds, Head Cocking is used to observe aerial threats, and this possible function should not be overlooked in herons. Head Tilting is turning both its head and its neck to one side of its body. It is to reduce glare by shifting its head away from the strike zone.
www.heronconservation.org/...
Herons have spectacularly specialized necks that enable them to strike with great force and speed, in much the way a spear thrower uses leverage.
The sixth of their 21 cervical vertebrae (that’s the horizontal one a third of the way down in this image) is longer than the others and gives them that sharply S-shaped neck. Combined with the configuration of muscle attachments in their neck, the heron can whip its head forward in a flash.
After watching the heron for a bit I turned on my video and saw it snatch up two more fish in quick succession. Makes it look easy. Heron also pauses to use that formidable beak in another way too.
🍂
Grey, heavily overcast in the PNW islands on this December day. Temp low 40s. Calm wind.
What’s up in nature in your area today?
🍁
"SPOTLIGHT ON GREEN NEWS & VIEWS"
EVERY SATURDAY AT 3:00 PM PACIFIC TIME ON THE DAILY KOS FRONT PAGE.
IT'S A GREAT WAY TO CATCH UP ON DIARIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED. BE SURE TO RECOMMEND AND COMMENT IN THE DIARY.
|