I laughed while editing this picture when I realized I spent more time with this young great blue heron during the winter and spring than any other being not living in my house. Alas it wasn’t true, I spent much more time with my friends at work, but true enough.

It’s rare that I get to know a particular bird, even visiting Ridgefield so consistently it is difficult to be sure a bird I see one day is the same one I saw in the same location previously. But this juvenile never strayed far from Horse and Long Lakes during the winter and spring. It was fun to see it learn the ropes, avoiding the territory of the older herons, fleeing the madness and mayhem that wandering too close to a red-winged blackbird nest brings.

Sometimes I just watched rather than take pictures, these lakes can draw a crowd as they sit at the start of the auto tour. And bringing out the big lens can attract even more attention, too much of which might cause the heron to take flight. But on this early morning in late February we were alone, the young blue heron in the soft blue light, giving me a look I had long hoped for.

I didn’t grow up around herons so they were always a bit of a novelty to me, I’d occasionally get a glimpse while hiking but they were shy and distant and easily spooked. Then I spent a summer working in Florida and was stunned to see herons that would let you walk right past them.

Whenever I saw a picture of a heron eating a fish, it was always a large fish, or a large eel or snake. Some photography leaders even bring along large fish for their attendants to toss to tolerant herons so their students can get pictures of herons with a large catch.

When we moved to the Northwest I was pleased to see how common herons were in the Willamette Valley, but their behavior surprised me on two accounts. The first was how often they hunted on land for prey like the Townsend’s vole. The second was that, when they did hunt in the water, they caught the expected prey like large bullfrogs but spent most of their time catching small invertebrates like salamanders and tiny fish.

I wanted to photograph these behaviors to show off how my herons eat and live, and I’ve done alright on the vole front but always struggled with the small invertebrates. With a bird as large as a heron, a tiny little fish at the tip of its bill was barely even visible in the picture.

I saw this hunting heron in Horse Lake and parked my car with the hopes it would eventually come my way. And eventually it did, catching little invertebrates all the way, and then I was blessed with this shot when it flipped one tiny little creature into its mouth.