Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Southwest Florida

USA

 

Great Blue Heron photographed at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. The bird was photographed in the swampy water from a five-foot-high boardwalk over the water. Because of this, the plants growing in the water became the background.

 

The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe.

 

An all-white population found only in the Caribbean and Florida was once treated as a separate species and known as the great white heron.

 

The primary food for the great blue heron is small fish, though it is also known to opportunistically feed on a wide range of shrimp, crabs, aquatic insects, rodents, and other small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Primary prey is variable based on availability and abundance. – Wikipedia

 

Done