Heron killing (and eating?) Rat

I didnt know they stayed up there in the cold/snow. Nice pictures. 

Thanks

Yum tasty fresh rat meat. Well at least they are helping out anyway.

Hard times call for desperate measures! Farmer's new best friend, got to love it.

That is awesome and the reason I don't use poison lol. Thanks for the pics . The night time hunts are the most fun for me lol.

I’ve seen something similar. There are white herons like you see around ponds, but in the park back our house they’ve learned that gophers are a tasty treat. Kinda cool to watch. They stand super still..then zap..skewered gopher. A short wait to make sure it’s expired, the a quick flip an down the hatch.

I've seen them take frogs, fish and even snakes, but never a rat. So cool!

Really nice photo of something I would never see, amazing to see a Heron in the snow, let alone one with a rat in its beak...

The are cool looking birds but they eat anything and everything that they can swallow. They are a protected species but I chase them off when ever I see them in the pond.

I stock my pond every year. The Blue Hurons earth the little buggers as fast as I can stock it. They can eat all the frogs they want. But leave my fish alone. Wish there was a season on them. 

When I read the title I thought: You're going to kill a Heron and ?maybe? eat it. Really?

When I saw the Heron with a rat, I thought... Holy Sh**.

That Heron is performing a good service.

I always have a few of them in my pond they come and eat the fish , bass and sun fish , I see it all the time ,

I did have a wild giant cat , one day jump off a bush and grabbed the throat of the blue heron , I was on my bench shooting my fx at time , I was pissed and I took aim and I dropped the cat , I took the bird to vet but injuries were too bad and he could not be saved.

I do see them here even in snow and winter but we have a trout river which does not freeze I think this may be why they stay in winter after pond freezes over

Great picture, thanks. Great blue herons are something. I saw one on a bitter cold day in a ditch that was frozen solid. As I walked towards him, he flew off so I checked where he had been. Looking through the chipped ice I spotted a bunch of frozen minnows. He was chipping them out. 

That is awesome and the reason I don't use poison lol. Thanks for the pics 

. The night time hunts are the most fun for me lol.

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It is also why I remove pellets from pests before disposing of them. Read that owls and hawks were getting lead poisoning from eating discarded kills. High power rifles are worse because the lead explodes and peppers the meat but it still isn’t good for them to ingest pellets.

On smaller pests the pellets usually pass through so it is less of an issue.

Too many hawks and owls as it is. The DNR needs to thin them out. While bow hunting, I counted 9 hawks at 1time in different places on one of my 20 acre properties. No wonder the rabbit and pheasant populations have declined.

Too many hawks and owls as it is. The DNR needs to thin them out. While bow hunting, I counted 9 hawks at 1time in different places on one of my 20 acre properties. No wonder the rabbit and pheasant populations have declined.

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Hawks I can see as being too many. But owls, they’re scarce around here, I love hearing them at night...

Got all types of Heron in the lake behind my house,, Heron Bay is right down the road from me. Never seen them eating any mammal/rodent. Didn't even know they'd do that. For some reason thought they all flew south for the winter, shows what i know, lol.

That photo is cool, nice.

Great pics! I can recall the first time my grandsons saw a Grey Heron while we were in Canada, when they asked what kind of bird this was, I told them " terradactyl"  and it's kinda stuck to this day, even though they know it's a Heron. They do look somewhat prehistoric in flight.

That’s funny, that’s what we call them too. Because of that crazy sound they make!

Stoti