I am amazed at how wildlife can not only adapt to humans but can thrive around humans.
dreher
Member Posts: 8,882 ✭✭✭✭
Spartanburg has several very nice parks. One has a very large pond and is a wonderful place to take your grandkids. So our daughter, her 9 month and almost 3 year old, my wife and I are walking along this pond, throwing bread to the ducks.
The kids are excited watching the ducks splashing around, quacking and competing for the bread. We are having such great family time. This is total perfection. Everything is perfect. The kids laughing, the weather, the ducks, all really great.
Than this heron flies up and lands really close to us and starts walking with us. Mr. Heron is probably within ten feet of us. Then BAM!! A decent sized bluegill is in the herons beak. In just a moment the fish is swallowed. Mr. Heron again starts walking with us. BAM!! Another bluegill is swallowed.
That is when it dawned on me that the bluegills come over to where the ducks are feeding on the bread to feed on the sinking pieces of bread the ducks have missed. The Heron is feeding in a target rich environment!!😁
That is some interesting adaptation!
Comments
Hope you're not expecting a Christmas card from him by way of thanks. They are notoriously aloof birds.
Sounds like a great time with your grandkids! What'd they think when the bluegill were getting eaten?
I saw this beast in the French Broad River.
Herons are so funny about people I'm surprised. 😍
"Independence Now, Independence Forever."
John Adams
Racoons, coyotes, & now deer unfortunately.
My bird feeder gets very busy. Early on, they'd all panic and fly away the moment I slid open the patio door. But by now, they stay put until I'm within a few feet of them. And there's one female who is so comfortable with me that I literally have to push her away with a finger so I can get the feeder down. It's neat looking into that tiny bright eye from two feet away.
Herons have ruined several Brook Trout streams here in Idaho.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
Try fishing in Florida, you have to navigate Seagulls, Herons and Pelicans, not to mention sharks and gators. Catching fish isn't the problem, its getting them back to the boat/bank or dock that's an issue.
Yeah, I have spearfished in the open ocean dealing with seals trying to steal my speared yellowtail fish.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
Yeah, possums on the porch and * in the barn eating cat food and deer under the oak in the yard eating acorns.
Occasionally a coyote in the yard trying to catch a cat.
I got up one winter morning a while back to see a very nice Mule deer buck staring at me through the front picture window. He'd been pawing up my wife's flower bed. He was either unafraid or desperate, because he went right back to it while I watched.
…what choice does the animals have, go extinct or adapt. Man continues to move into and destroy the homes
Parks around here have banned feeding ducks bread. Mainly due to it lacking in nutrition they need and creates a health risk for them.
Hey @PeeBob good to see you posting.
Trying to eat lunch at a lakeside restaurant when this guy shows up (darn near on my shoulder), stayed the whole time we were there. This is pretty common here.
Wolves have been released here in NorCal and are prospering. We now have seven active packs. They are a protected species with tracking collars. A wounded wolf can travel for miles before dying, I've been told.