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.
This photo captures the heron bracing itself with its wing on the ice as it pulled its head out of the water with the bluegill lunch securely in its mouth. It is also easy to see the individual scales on the upper part of its legs.