The Kilgore Lady Blue

I look for her each time I go to Kilgore-Longview Texas, standing her solitary watch, knee-deep in a roadside pond. I worry for her, in this narrow margin of habit, wondering if and when someone will decide to come in with pesticides or building equipment and destroy this fragile little bit of swampy marshland, home and hearth to a single Great Blue Heron. But the Kilgore Lady Blue doesn't seem to worry about such things. She poses in her small pond, watching the cars drift by, elegant and aloof as any modern sculpture.

In spite of her closeness to civilization (a mere 15 yards off a highway), she doesn't welcome intruders. Once I stopped the car along the highway and trotted back to take her picture, but she simply launched herself skyward and sailed off before I could get the F-stop set. A thoughtful "kraaunk" drifted back on the wind to me. Looking photogenic for my wildlife pictures wasn't in her agenda that day.

Blue herons are one of the most beautiful of the American birds -- and one of the largest, too, standing nearly 41/2 feet tall when fully grown. They're a slaty blue color (though some, like the Kilgore Lady Blue are very pale) with dramatic black "eyebrow stripes" of feathers that arch from the top of their head to the back of their neck. You'll find them along streams and rivers and ponds in most areas of the northern Americas -- not as common as the grackle, but more common than their shy cousins, the bitterns.

I was amazed to find that not all Great Blues are as stand-offish as this Texas lady. As I was browsing the "backyard pond" sites, I was surprised to find that several people complained about Great Blues fishing in their ponds. These herons have turned themselves into very large backyard birds, dining on fish, frogs, salamanders, snakes, crawdads, and dragonflies in the ponds. It doesn't matter how expensive (or inexpensive) these creatures are -- to a Great Blue, they're simply dinner. To a Great Blue, all those lovely (and expensive) koi are simply a floating sushi bar with a big welcome sign. From dawn to dusk and through the night, the herons will help themselves to captive fishes in small ponds.

The great blue heron fishes in both night and day, with most of its activity around dawn and dusk. It wades into shallow water and poses, waiting for the right victim to swim past. As soon as a likely dinner comes by, the heron makes a swift strike with its sharp "spearlike" bill -- and dinner is

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