An oddly-shaped, magnificent bird has been haunting me since I first saw it 18 years ago in North Carolina – the great blue heron. I was doing a 2.8-mile walk on the trail around Lake Lynn in Raleigh when I saw a blue-gray bird standing on long, stick-thin legs in shallow water.
September 2022 picture from North Carolina
It barely moved. Its eyes scanned the water. Then, a sudden dive forward with its dagger-like beak while it remained standing. It resurfaced with a small fish its beak. The quickness of such a slow-moving creature was startling. What was this graceful, yet gangly bird with shaggy feathers and a black stripe over its eyes?
November 2005 next to Lake Lynn, Raleigh.
Time Traveling Bird
Since then, I’ve seen them hunting in many small ponds and swamps, sitting high in trees that border the water, and flying high above me. I thought this must be a prehistoric creature in the air – its wide wingspan propelling it forward slowly and methodically and its long, thin legs dangling back past his tail feathers. I wondered if a dimensional portal had opened, and I was trapped in an alternate dimension like the Marshall family in the 1974 show Land of the Lost.
Pterosaur Connection Debunked
So, I finally decided to investigate and my research on flying dinosaurs led me to this National Geographic clip, Pterosaur 101. Pterosaurs are flying reptiles, not birds, I learned. As a side note of how truth can be fantastical, a giant pterosaur nicknamed “Dracula” once existed. The skeletal remains are 11.5 ft (3.5 m) tall. But unfortunately, its body structure meant that it probably could not fly.
In my hunt to find a connection between the great blue heron and dinosaurs, I discovered my quest was not original. Many have wondered. According to the American Bird Conservancy website, no currently living bird species ever existed at the same time as dinosaurs which ended 66 million years ago in the Mesozoic Era. But the great blue heron has existed for quite a while, with its fossils dating as far back as 1.8 million years ago and its genus Ardea, which includes 60 species of herons (long-legged wading birds), going back 14 million years.
Facts on the Great Blue Heron
Dimensions
- Weight – only 5 to 6 lbs (1.8kg to 2.2 kg) due to hollow bones
- Height – 4 to 5 ft (1.2 to 1.5 m)
- Wingspan – 6 to 7 ft (1.8 to 2.1 m)
Special Skills
- Excellent night vision allows them to hunt day and night
- Flexible neck – when flying its neck coils into an “S” shape
What they eat
Beyond diving for fish, it impales and eats reptiles, small mammals, amphibians, and other birds.
Feathers
They use a fringed claw to comb their chest feathers. Their chest feathers are used to remove fish oil from their other feathers.
Oldest
Found in Texas when it was at least 24 years, 6 months old
Calls
To indicate a greeting, landing, being disturbed, and being threatened.
Listen to great blue heron sounds.
Where they live
Native to North America, with a range that includes Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and Galapagos Islands.
Protection
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, an international treaty that prohibits the killing, selling, trading, capturing, or transporting of protected migratory bird species unless authorized by the Department of Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
How to help them
While they’re not considered endangered, their populations are in decline in parts of the western U.S., Alaska, and some areas in southern Canada due to habitat loss.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has instructions on how you can help by building great blue heron nest platforms away from humans and near water that is less than 4.5 feet deep.
My quest to discover more about the great blue heron was achieved almost too well. Seeing a lanky fishing bird standing in a pond is adorable, but one that also gobbles down rabbits, chipmunks, and ducklings is not. I can not unsee those videos I stumbled on.
Sadly, it doesn’t always end well for herons either as they can choke to death when they try to swallow creatures that are too large for their throats. The great blue heron has to watch out for predators too, but more often to protect its eggs and chicks from other birds (crows, hawks, eagles) or animals, like raccoons and coyotes.
Even knowing more now, the great blue heron is still a mystifying bird, full of contradictions. Walking and flying slowly, but quickly fishing with its powerful neck and long bill. So tall with broad wings, but so lightweight. A physicality reminiscent of a pterosaur, but living in a modern world. Even after 1.8 million years of evolution, the great blue heron has kept an ancient-looking design.
When I see them ambling across the sky from now on, I’ll still want to believe they lived during the age of dinosaurs. So of course, I will assume that somehow a portal opened in front of them, and they flew through to this alternate dimension.
Karen M. Free 