Many photographers, when talking about how they got hooked on bird photography, will mention the thrill of capturing some unique moments. It could be a bird-in-flight, birds fighting, a parent bird feeding an offspring, an unusual posture, special lighting, or a bird hunting. This article features a selection of images of a heron catching two fish simultaneously.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

I noticed a Great Blue Heron hunting on one of the berms at the Hendrie Valley Sanctuary. These are man-made structures formed with old pine trees. They are designed to keep carp in Lake Ontario from invading the ponds and stream at the sanctuary. Water can flow through the berms allowing smaller fish and other wildlife to pass through but the berms restrict the movement of large fish like carp. Heron will often perch at the edge of a berm to fish, or will sometimes hunt on the berm itself. They often look for small snakes, rodents, or fish that they can see in the water underneath the berm.

As I watched the heron it made a quick strike into the berm and its head surfaced with two large fish in its beak as you can see in the photograph above.

As the heron struggled with the two large fish in its beak it changed its position. Luckily it turned towards me, facing into the sun, which gave me a great view of its catch. You can see that the heron has one fish impaled on the end of its beak, and the other fish clamped between its upper and lower mandibles.

The heron lowered its head slightly which allowed the clamped fish to slide down its beak towards the impaled fish. Eventually the heron was able to use the weight of the clamped fish to dislodge the impaled fish.

Once the impaled fish dropped off its beak the heron was able to adjust the position of the clamped fish so it could swallow it head first.

After swallowing the original clamped fish, the heron searched through the berm looking for the impaled fish.

Within a few moments the heron found the original impaled fish and its head emerged from the brush with it in its beak. The bird then proceeded to re-position the fish in its beak, then swallow it as you’ll see in the four images that follow.

After the heron swallowed the second fish it waited around a bit, perching on one of the posts along the berm.

It paused for a quick drink…

Then launched itself into flight – giving me other image opportunities.

Anticipating that the heron would soon fly off, I adjusted the focal length of my lens to allow for the wing movements of the bird.

It took less than 14 minutes from the time that I captured the first image of this heron hunting on the berm, until it took off from the post. Those few minutes made the hours I spent at the Hendrie Valley Sanctuary that morning all worthwhile…and are the reason I’ll keep going back.

Technical Note:
All photographs were captured hand-held using Nikon 1 gear as noted in the EXIF data. Images were produced from RAW files using my standard process of DxO PhotoLab, CS6, and the Nik Collection.

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