{"id":619,"date":"2011-07-24T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-24T21:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/07\/florida-discoveries-15-great-blue-heron-in-action.html"},"modified":"2011-07-24T21:24:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-24T21:24:00","slug":"florida-discoveries-15-great-blue-heron-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/07\/florida-discoveries-15-great-blue-heron-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Discoveries 15: Great Blue Heron in Action!"},"content":{"rendered":"

First of all, I learned that it’s “heron<\/a>” and not “huron<\/a>“.  Oops.  I was wondering why my Google searches kept directing me to Michigan-related websites…<\/p>\n

Last night Dave and I went on a good old fashioned DATE!  The kids are visiting grandparents in the northeast through next weekend, and even though Dave’s hard at work these two weeks, we had a fantastic weekend!  Yesterday we went tubing on a creek in the northern part of the Florida Panhandle, then we went parasailing and wrapped up the evening with a delightful steamed seafood dinner.  I’ll be blogging about our parasailing next, but for now I wanted to share this cool series of iPhone pictures I took of this Great Blue Heron<\/a>* enjoying some fish.  I didn’t have my good camera with me, since I didn’t want to lose it on the parasailing boat.<\/p>\n

I thanked the family who bought the fish feed that lured the fish for the bird to eat…<\/p>\n

*Yes, I’m capitalizing the full name of this species of bird, <\/i>per this journal article<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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He started out on the dock, staring intently at a patch of water near the public fish food machine.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Staring hard…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Now he’s on a floating platform just below the fish feed machine…he moved to this spot after a kid put 50 cents in the  machine and got a handful of fish food.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Splash!  He quickly darts his beak into the water as the fish come up to get the feed.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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He got one!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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After swallowing the first fish, he’s immediately on the lookout again…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Splash!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Another one!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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You can see how the fish has enlarged his neck.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, I learned that it’s “heron” and not “huron“.  Oops.  I was wondering why my Google searches kept directing me to Michigan-related websites… Last night Dave and I went on a good old fashioned DATE!  The kids are visiting grandparents in the northeast through next weekend, and even though Dave’s hard at work … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[31,44,626,69],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bird-watching","tag-birds","tag-florida-discoveries","tag-wildlife"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t