Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Great Blue Heron:

The Great Blue Heron is a large wading bird.  It is common near open water and wetlands.  It has a wide distribution and can be found all throughout North and Central America, as well as the West Indies.  This heron has a blue body, a grey neck, and a white face.  Its long legs allow it to feed deeper than most other birds.  It will eat fish, shrimp, crabs, rodents, frog, turtles, and snakes. 
Unfortunately, the beautiful koi pond that you have in your back yard will attract these birds, and they will feed on your expensive koi.  They are attracted to these small ponds because it will save them time and energy when hunting for food, because the koi are right there for the taking. 
Herons can be deterred from your pond in several ways.  A “fence” can be built around the pond using fishing string.  The fence should be about 14 inches high so that the heron cannot reach over it.  However, this solution will not always work because the heron can just land directly in the pond.  Another device is the scare crow.  This will spray a stream of water at any movement that it detects and scare away the heron.  Also, a heron decoy can be placed at the pond.  This decoy will be much larger than an average-sized heron so that real herons will not want to get in the way of the larger, fake heron. 

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