In February 2025 a Great Blue Heron spent many hours and many days staring into a small opening in the ice at Stu Visser. One day as we headed down the trail toward the opening we saw the Great Blue Heron make a strike into the water and came up empty. When we got closer, we stopped to watch it. Soon it made a couple of stealthy moves, so I zoomed in on it with my camera. I was rewarded. I was able to photograph a great sequence of its fishing abilities from this one to a photo with a fish securely in its mouth and the bird upright on the ice.
This photo shows its ability to put its head into the water and able to catch a fish a ways below the surface. This photo also captured the splash and the splash reflection from the point of impact. It is also easy to see the individual scales on the upper part of its legs.