Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 14:50:22 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: June Tveekrem Subject: Green Heron playing Cricket MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Here is some amazingly intelligent Green Heron behavior, observed at least once in Costa Rica and at least once in Minnesota. Anybody seen a Green Heron in Maryland fishing in this manner? June Tveekrem Columbia, Howard County, MD tweekiebird@toadmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The original (Costa Rica) observation: "I was touring up Ca?o Harold [Tortuguero NP] by electric motor just fifty meters upstream from two big Almendro trees (Dipteryx panamensis) when I observed, along with two Swiss-Italians I was guiding for, a lone Green Heron (Butorides virescens) standing on some water hyacinth and looking into the water. We stopped to silently observe it from a short distance. It was looking down into the water. Floating in the current directly in front of the heron was a cricket which was on its back with its legs moving in the air. It was unable to right itself and was probably injured. To my surprise the heron did not pick it up to eat it but was observing it closely as it floated slowly by. Suddenly when the cricket appeared to be almost out of reach the heron plucked it out of the water and placed it back in the water just slightly upstream. It again observed it closely as it floated by. After repeating this four or five times it suddenly lunged its head forward at the cricket, catching a small fish which had come up to eat it. It then quickly swallowed the fish. "I asked my clients if it would be all right to continue observing the heron for a few minutes more and they agreed as they were just as surprised as I was to have witnessed this." "A short time later the bird flew over to the other side of the river and landed on the weeds on the far side. I followed it with the electric motor and we came upon it again within a short distance of less than ten meters. The heron was walking back away from the river towards the trees. I was observing it with my binoculars when it suddenly lunged forward to catch what turned out to be another cricket. I could clearly see through the binoculars that it was crushing the cricket repeatedly in its bill. It walked out to the edge of the river and placed the still live-and-kicking cricket in the water. It repeated the plucking and replacing routine with the cricket in the water and after a few tries caught another fish!" Chris Fagyal Senior Software Engineer United Defense, L.P. Fridley, MN (763) 572-5320 chris.fagyal@udlp.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- The observation in Minnesota: "I wrote an article for the "Marsh Wren-dition" (Detroit Lakes Bird Club newsletter) a few years ago after observing a green heron on the Otter Tail River at Tamarac NWR using a piece of leaf in this same manner. The heron was standing on a log in the water and repeatedly picked up the piece of leaf and dropped it to the water's surface. When an unsuspecting small fish came up to check it out - snatch and gulp! I was so amazed at what I witnessed, I did some research, and sure enough, green herons are known to "go fishing." Betsy Beneke Brigham City, Utah ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================