Great Blue Heron

On the other side of the peninsula from the foggy beach is a much wider beach area and, as you may recall from the earlier visit, there are tide pools there with small creatures in them. But today, were were treated to a Great Blue Heron hunting for lunch.




Naturally, I did not have the telephoto lens with me and knew that if I walked back to the car to get it he's fly away. So, I carried on with 35 mm lens and cropped the resulting images pretty heavily. Surprisingly, he allowed me to get fairly close so these aren't so bad.

Below he has located his next bite of lunch and is in the act of grabbing it out of the sound.

Here, you see the hapless fish wiggling in his beak.

And immediately after swallowing, he was back on the prowl again.

And another success! this fellow was on a hot streak. Or maybe the fish here are just not too bright.

You'll notice that in the background of all this photos, there is something strange. It is the fog from the marine layer which has, for some reason, concentrated on the far shore of the inlet. It give the view a bit of an otherworldly feel to it.